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LIBRARY OF^NGRESS 



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IN DIXIE-^ 



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MY PEf^SONAL EXPBRIENSE IN 

REBEL PRISONS. 



fit <^locU of iPic oK"atc)^flip.^, '3'tiuation^ cixib Su['['c ^l»ig> o[' 

i(\,e "eSoip in o'iiCw-e" but lug llie tale 

?|Mar^ of t^tz §teC^c-^l'io^v. 



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A PRIVATE OF 00, D, lOTH REGIMENT 

WIS0ONSIN VOLUNTEER INFANTRY. 



OWATONNA, MINN. 

THE PEOPLE'S PRESS PRINT. 

1889. 



To rriy Conirades 

who, like rriyself, were so 

uiiforturiate as to have suffered the 

l^orrors of a living death iq the Prisori Pens of tl-ie 

South, aqd wl"io, tl^rough all t\\e\r l^ardsl^ips, privatioqs, aqd 

sufferir^gs, remained loyal to our FLAG, and to nriy beloved Wife, 

wP\o suffered uqtold tortures of nqind begotteq by anxiety 

on account of tl^e ur\certair|ty of nqy fate, for 

fifteen long, weary, nqonths, — tfiis 

work is dedicated iq 

F, C. & L. 

by 

THE AUTHOR. 



'^.^. -'1 



COPYRIGHT, 1889, 

BY 

W. W. DAY. 



PREFACE 



I have sometimes been in doubt whether a preface was necessary to this 
work; but have decided to write one, for the reason that in a preface the 
author is permitted to give the reader a "peep behind the scenes," as he is 
not permitted to do in the body of the book. Since the commencement of the 
publication of this story, in a serial form, a few very good people have been 
so kind as to tell me, that it is "too late in the day" to write upon the sub- 
ject of Rebel Prisons. My answer is: it is never too late to tell the story of 
what patriotic men suffered in the defence of Constitutional liberty, and of 
the Union of States, which union was cemented by the blood of our Revolu- 
tionary sires. It is never too late to tell the story of, — 

"Man's unhumanity to man." 
It is never too late to tell the truth, although the truth may be sharper 
than a two-edged sword. It is never too late to inspire our young men to 
love, and venerate, and defend, the Flag of their Country; to tell them how 
their fathers suffered in support of a principle No, it is not too late to tell 
this story, and I have no apologies to offer any man, living or dead, for tell- 
ing it. But, while I have no apologies to offer, I deem an explanation in 
order. 

Since I commenced writing this Story I have felt the want of a liberal 
education as I never felt it before. For, to tell the exact truth, I never en- 
joyed the advantages of any school of higher grade than the common district 
school of thirty years ago. Therefore, kind reader, — you who have enjoyed 
the advantages of better schools, and a more liberal education, — when you 
find a mistake in this book, one which can not be laid at the door of the 
printer, kindly, and for "Sweet Charity's Sake," overlook it; for I assure you 
I would be thus kind to you under similar circumstances. 

W. W. DAY. 
Lemond, Minnesota, September, 1889. 



CONTENTS. 



age. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 


Introduction 


2 


The Battle of Chickamauga 


5 


Captured 




CHAPTER II. 


6 


The Field Hospital 


8 


A trip over the battle field 


8 


The Atlanta Prison Pen 


9 


- The "Engine Thieves" 


10 


Onward to Richmond 




CHAPTER III. 


12 


Libby Prison 


18 


Scott's Building 


15 


"Zult" 




CHAPTER IV. 


16 


Danville Prison 


17 


Bug Soup 


18 


Patriotic Songs 


19 


Searched — Small-pox 




CHAPTER V. 


20 


The "Very Lord" 


21 


Escape of Johney Squires 


22 


Skirmishing 




CHAPTER VI. 


25 


- En Route to Andersonville 


27 


Description of Andersonville 


28 


"Dugouts" and "Gophers" 




CHAPTER VII. 


29 


Winder and Wirz 


31 


"Poll Parrot" 


32 


- Georgia Home "Gyaards" 




CHAPTER VIII. 


33 


Insufficient and poor quality 




of rations. 


34 


Digging Wells 


35 


Providence Spring 


35 


Stealing a board from the 




dead line 


36 


A break in the stockade 


36 


- Plymouth Pilgrims 



Page. 

CHAPTER IX. 

38 ... The Raiders 

39 Capture and hanging of the 

raiders 

41 - - - Spanking 

CHAPTER X. 

42 - - Close quarters 

43 Joe Hall and "Tip" Hoover 

46 The Negro. Catholic Priest 

CHAPTER XI. 

47 Mortality at Andersonville 

Dr. Jones' report 
57 Remarks on Dr. Jones' report 

CHAPTER XII. 

59 - Progress of the war 

59 - - Tribute to Logan 

60 - - - New quarters 

61 Number of deaths in Ander- 

sonville 

62 - . - Jeff Davis 

CHAPTER XIII. 

64 - Good-bye Andersonville 

65 - - Arrival at Charleston 

66 - - Historic Ground 
66 - - - - Florence 

CHAPTER XIV. 

68 Naked and cold and hungry, 

Sherman 

69 Letter to Wisconsin Sanitary 

Commission. 

70 Tribute to the Sanitary Com- 

mission. 

72 - - - - Honey 

CHAPTER XV. 

73 . - - Vale Dixie 

74 - Exchange Commenced 

75 - - My turn comes 
77 - - Homeward bound 
77 - - - Conclusion 



ERRATA. 



On page 3, 23d line, 1st column, for 
"right" read regiment. 

On page 74, 16th line, for "adopt" 
read adopted. 

On page 74, 23d line, for "slowing" 



read slowly. 

On page 74, 2d column, 2d 
graph, 10th line, for "regions" 
designs. 



para- 
read 



FIFTEEN MONTHS 112 DIXIE. 



<D^l 



MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 
IN REBEL PRISONS. 



BY W. W. DAY. 



INTRODUCTION. 

On the 12tli day of April, 1861, in 
Chnrlestou Harbor, a shot was fired 
whose echo rang round the world. 
The detonation of that cannon, fired 
at Fort Snniter, reverberated from 
tlie pine-clad hills and rock-bound 
coast of Maine across the continent to 
the placid waters of the Pacific, thrill- 
ing the hearts of the freemen of the 
north and causing the blood, inherited 
from Revolutionary sires, to course 
through their veins with maddening 
speed. That cannon was fired by 
armed rebellion at freedom of person, 
freedom of speech, freedom of the 
press, and the Union of States. That 
echo roused those freemen to a reso- 
lution to do and to die, if need be, 
for the maintenance of the Union, 
and the supremacy of law. 

The outbreak of the rebellion 
found the writer, then a little past 
majority, on a farm near a little vil- 
lage in Wisconsin. I was just mar- 
ried, had put in my spring crop and 
when the first call was made for 
troops, was not situated so that I 
could leave home, but on the 10th of 
October following I enlisted in Co. D. 
10th Wis. Inf. Vols. 

As this is to be a history of prison 
life, it is not my purpose to write a 



history of my regiment but a short 
sketch is proper in order to give the 
reader a fair understanding of my 
capture. 

The loth left Camp Holton, near-- 
Milwaukee, about the middle of Nov. 

1861. We went by railway via Chi- 
cago. Indianjipolis and Evansville to 
Louisville, Ky.. thence to Shepherds- 
ville, thence to Elizabethtovvn, where 
we were assigned to Sill's Brigade of 
Mitchell's Division. Wintered at 
Bacon Creek and on the 11th of Feb. 

1862, marched witli Buell's army to 
the capture of Bowling Green. Buell's 
army and i)art of Grant's army ar- 
rived almost simultaneously at Nash- 
ville, Temi. Grant with his forces 
proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, Buell 
to Murfreesboro. After Buell with 
the greater part of his army had 
marched to Grant's support. Mitch- 
ell's Division marched on Huntsville, 
Ala., capturing that place together 
with al)out 500 prisoners, 12 engines 
and a large amount of rolling stock, 
the property of the Memphis & 
Charleston R. R. 

The 10th guarded the M. & C. R. R. 
from Huntsville to Stevenson, the 
junction of the M. & C. and the Nash- 
ville & Chattanooga R, R. during the 
summer of '62. 

Early in September we commenced 



FIFTEEJ^ MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



that famous retreat from the Ten- 
nesse to the Ohio, and to show the 
reader how famous it was to those 
who participated in it, I will say we 
averaged twenty-four miles per day 
from Stevenson, Ala., to Louisville, 
Ky. On the 8th of October, supported 
Simonson's battery at the Battle of 
Perryville, losing 146, killed and 
wounded out of 375 men. Our colors 
showing the marks of forty-nine rebel 
bullets, in fact they were torn into 
shreds, Dec. 31st, '62 and Jan. 1st 
and 2nd, '63, in the Battle of Stone's 
Eiver, or Murfreesboro. 

The army of the Cumberland, then 
under command or Gen. Rosecrans, 
was divided into four army corps. 
The 14th, under Gen. Thomas, was in 
the center. The 20th, under Gen. A. 
McD. McCook, on the right. Tlie 
21st, under Gen. Crittenden, on the 
left and the Reserve Corps, under 
Gen. Gordon Granger, in supporting 
distance in the rear. 

We remained at Murfreesboro until 
June 23rd, '63, when the whole army 
advanced against Bragg, who was 
entrenched at Tullahoma, drove him 
out of his entrenchments, across the 
mountains and Tennessee River into 
Chattanooga and vicinity. Here com- 
menced a campaign begun in victory 
and enthusiasm, and ending at Chick- 
amauga in disaster and gloom, but 
not in absolute defeat. 

THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMArGA. 

Rosecrans showed fine strategic 
ability in maneuvering Bragg out of 
Tennessee without a general engage- 
ment, but he made a serious and al- 
most fatal mistake after he had 
crossed the Tennessee River with his 
own army. He should have entrenched 
at Chattanooga and kept his army 
well together. Instead of doing so, 
he scattered his forces in a mountain- 
ous country. Crittenden's Corps fol- 
lowed the north bank of the Tennessee 
to a point above Chattanooga, there 
crossed the river flanking Chatta- 
nooga on the east and cutting the 
railroad south, thus compelling the 
evacution of that place. 

McCook crossed two ranges of 
mountains to Trenton, while Thomas 



with his corps still remained at 
Bridgeport, on the Tennessee, and 
Granger was leisurely marching down 
from Nashville. 

In the reorganization of the Army 
of the Cumberland in Oct. '62, our 
Brigade was called 1st Brig, of 1st 
Div., 14th Corps. The Brigade was 
commanded by Col. Scribner of the 
38th Indiana. The Division was com- 
manded through the Perryville and 
Murfreesboro campaigns by Gen. 
Rousseau, but through the Chicka- 
niauga campaign by Gen. Absalom 
Baird, now Inspector General of the 
Army. 

I shall not attempt to give an histor- 
ical or ofilcial description of the Bat- 
tle of Chickamauga, but a description 
as seen from the standpoint of a pri- 
vate soldier. 

On tlie 18th of September our Divi- 
sion was bivouacked at Maclamore's 
Cove, a few miles from Lee & Gor- 
don's Mills. Heavy skirmishing had 
been going on all day at Lee & Gor- 
don's Mills and Rossville between 
Crittenden and McCook's forces and 
those of the enemy. About 4 p.m., 
the "vVssembly" sounded and we "fell 
in" and commenced our march for 
the battlefield. At dark my Regt. was 
throwm out as flankers. We marched 
until 10 o'clock along the banks of a 
small creek while on the opposite side 
of the creek a similar line of the ene- 
my marched parallel with us. We 
reached Crawfish Springs about 10 p. 
M.. here we took the road again and 
continued our march until sunrise on 
the m.orning of the 19th when Ave 
halted and prepared breakfast. Before 
we had finished our breakfast we 
heard a terrible roar and crash of 
musketry to our front. which was east. 
This was the opening of the battle of . 
Chickamauga. Immediately after- 
ward an Aid came dashing up to 
Lieut. Col. Ely, commanding 10th 
Wis. We were ordered to fall in and 
load at will. Then the order was 
given "forward, double quick, march," 
and forward we went throught brush, 
over rocks and fallen trees, keeping 
our alignment almost as perfect as 
though we Avere marching in review. 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



Very soon we began to hear the sharp 
"flzt and ping" of bullets, a sound al- 
ready familiar to our ears for we 
were veterans of two years service, 
and then we began to take the John- 
ies in "out of the wet." Forward, 
and still forward, we rushed all the 
time tiring at the enemy who was 
falling back. After advancing nearly 
a raiie in this manner we found the 
enemy, en masse. in the edge of a corn- 
field. Our Division halted, the skir- 
mishers fell back into line and the 
business of the day commenced in 
deadly earnest. We were ordered to 
lie down and load and fire at will. 
Eeader, I wish I had the ability to 
describe. what followed. Not more 
than twenty-five rods in front of us 
was a dense mass of rebs who were 
pouring in a showei* of bullets that 
fairly made the ground boil. To the 
rear of my right was a section of 
Loomis' 1st Mich. Battery which was 
firing double shotted canister over our 
heads. How we did hug the ground, 
bullets from the front like a swarm of 
bees, canister from the rear screech- 
ing and yelling like lost spirits in 
deepest sheol. But this could not last 
long. mortal man could not stand such 
a shower of lead while he had willing 
legs to carry him out of such a place. 
The rebels soon foimd a gap at the 
right of my Regt.and began to pour in 
past our right flank. I was lying on 
the ground loading and firing fast as 
possible when I saw the rebels charg- 
ing past our right, Avith their arms at 
a trail, looking up I discovered that 
there was not a man to the right of 
me in the Regt. I did not wait for 
orders but struck out for the rear in a 
sqund of one. I could not see a man 
of my regiment so I concluded to 
help support the battery, accordingly 
I rushed up nearly in front of one of 
the guns just as they gave the John- 
ies twenty pounds of canister. That 
surprised me, I found I was in the 
wrong place, twenty pounds of canister 
fired through me was liable to lay me 
np, so I filed left and came in front of 
the other gun just as the men were 
ready to fire. They called out to me 
to hurry as they wanted to fire, facing 



the gun and leaning over to the right 
I called to theiu to fire away and they 
did fire away with a vengeance. After 
this things seem mixed up in my 
mind. I remember getting to the 
rear of that gun, of hearing the bul- 
lets whistling, of seeing the woods 
full of rebs, of thinking I shall get 
hit yet, of trying to find a good place 
to hide and finally of stumbling and 
falling, striking my breast on my 
canteen, and then oblivion. 

How long I remained unconscious 
I never knew, probably not long, but 
when I came to my understanding the 
firing had ceased in my immediate 
vicinity except now and then a scat- 
tering shot. I started again for the 
rear and had not g(me more than a 
quarter of a mile before I found Gen. 
Baird urging a lot of stragglers to 
rally and protect a flag which he was 
holding. Here I found Capt. W. A. 
Collins and several other men of my 
Company. When he saw me he asked 
me if I was hurt. I told him "no, not 
much. I had a couple of cannons fired 
in my face and fell on my canteen and 
and knocked the breath out of me 
l)ut that I would be all right in a little 
while." He then told me I had bet- 
ter go to the rear to the hospital. To 
this 1 objected, telling him that I had 
rather stay with the "boys." 

We then marched to the rear and 
halted in a corn field. The stragglers 
from the regiment began to come in 
and the brigade was soon together 
again, but we did no -more fighting 
that day. But just before night we 
were marched to the front and 
formed in line of battle. About 8 
o'clock in the evening Johnson's Div- 
ision attempted to relieve another 
division in our front, Wood's, I think 
it was, when the latter division poured 
a galling fire into the former, suppos- 
ing they were reliels. Some of the 
balls came through the ranks of the 
10th, whereupon Company K opened 
fire without orders and a sad mistake 
it proved for it revealed our position 
and a rebel battery opened on us with 
shells. To say that they made it 
lively for ns is to say but part of the 
truth. The woods were fairly ablaze 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



with linrsting shells. The way they 
hissed and siirieked and howled and 
crashed was trying to the nerves of a 
timid man. 

After the firing had ceased we were 
marched a short distance to the rear 
and bivouacked for tlie night. I laid 
down by a fire but "tired nature's 
sweet restorer" did not visit me that 
ni^ht. I had received a terrible 
shock during the day. V/e had been 
whipped most unmercifully. The 1st 
Division of the 14ih Corps had turned 
its back on tlie enemy for the first 
time, that day; and, too, there was 
to-morrow coming, and what would 
it bring? Do coming events cast their 
shadov^s before? Perhaps they do, 
at any rate tlie tiioughts of all these 
things passing through my mind made 
me pass a sleepless night. 

Sunday morning, September 20th, 
came. The same sun that shone 
dimly through the hazy atmosphere 
which surrounded the battlefield of 
Chickamauga, and called those tired 
soldiers to the terrible duties of an- 
other day of battle, shone brightly 
upon our dear ones at home, calling 
them to prepare for a d;iy of rest and 
devotion, and while they were wend- 
ing their way to church to offer up a 
prayer, perhaps, in our behalf, their 
way enlivened by the sweet sounds of 
the Sabbath bells, we were marching 
to the front to meet a victorious and 
determined foe, our steps enlivened 
by the thundering boom of the mur- 
derous cannon, the sharp rattle of 
musketry and the din and roar of 
battle, together with the shrieks and 
groans of our wounded and dying 
comrades. What a scene for a Sab- 
bath day? But I am moralizing, I 
must on with my story. 

Our division formed in line of bat- 
tle on a ridge, with Scribner's Brigade 
in the center. Starkweather's on the 
the right and King's on the left. 
Soon the rebels came up the ascent at 
the charge step. We w;iit until they 
are in short range then we rise from 
behind our slight entrenchments and 
pour such a well directed volley into 
their ranks that they stagger for a 
moment, but for a moment only, and 



on they come again returning our fire, 
then the batteries open on them and 
from their steel throats belch forth 
iron hail and bursting shells, while 
we pour in our deadly fire of mus- 
ketry. They halt ! Thky break ! 
THEY EUN ! Those heroes of 
Longstreet's, they have met their 
match in the hardy veterans of the 
west. Three times that day did we 
send back the rebel foe. In the 
meantime McCook and Crittenden 
had not fared so well. Bragg had 
been reinforced by Longstreet, Joe 
Johnson and Buckner, so that he had 
a much larger force then did Eose- 
crans. 

Shortly after noon Bragg threw such 
an overwhelming force upon those 
two corps that they were swept from 
the field and driven toward Chatta- 
nooga, carrying Eosecrans and staff 
with them. 

Here it was that Thomas, with the 
14th Corps, reinforced by Granger, 
earned the title of "The Eock of 
Chickamauga." Holding fast to the 
base of Missionary Eidge he inter- 
posed those two corps Vietween the 
corps of McCook and Crittenden and 
the enemy, giving them time to es- 
cape up the valley toward Chatta- 
nooga. 

But to return to my division. Three 
times that day did we repel the charge 
of the enemy, but the fourth time 
they came in such numbers and with 
such impetuosity that they fairly 
lifted us out of our line. When we 
broke for the rear I starte'd out with 
Capt. Collins, but he was in light 
marching order, while 1 was encum- 
bered with knapsack, gun and accou- 
trements, and he soon left me behind. 

When I left the line I fired my gun 
at the enemy, and as I retreated I 
loaded it again, on the run, all but the 
cap. When Capt. Collins left me I 
began to look for some safe place and 
seeing a twenty-four pounder battery, 
with a Union flag, I started toward it. 
They were firing canister at the time 
as I supposed, at the enemy, but they 
fell around me so thickly that they 
fairly made the sand boil. I began to 
think it was a rebel battery with a 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



Union flag as a decoy, so I filed right 
until I got out of range. 

Soon after getting out of range of 
the battery I came across a dead reb- 
el and noticing a canteen by his side 
I stooped, picked it up and shook it 
and found that it was partly filled 
with water. This was a Godsend 
for I had been without water all day. 
The canteen was covered with blood, 
but, oh, how sweet and refreshing 
that water tasted. Here I threw 
away my knapsack to facilitate my 
flight. I soon came to a wounded 
rebel who begged of me to give him 
a drink of water. I complied with 
his request and again started out for 
Chattanooga. I had gone but a short 
distance before I saw a soldier beck- 
oning to me, supposing by the uni- 
form that he was a member of the 
2nd Ohio, I approached within a short 
distance of him, when the following 
colloquy took place: 

Keb, — "He'ah yo Yank, give me 
yo'ah gun." 

Yank, — "Not by a thundering sight, 
the first thing I learned after I enlist- 
ed was to keep my gun myself." 
Reb, — "Give me yo'ah gun, I say." 
Yank, — "Don't you belong to the 
2nd Ohio ?" 

Reb, — "No, I belong to the 4th Mis- 
sissippi. Give me yo'ah gun." 

At the same time pointing his gun 
point blank at my breast. 

Yank, — "The devil you do." At 
the same time handing him my gun 
for, you will remember, I had loaded 
my gun but had not capped it. 

I think I hear some of my readers 
say "you was vulgar." No, I was 
surprised and indignant and I submit 
that I expressed my feelings in as 
concise language as possible. Con- 
sider the situation, I was in the woods, 
it was nearly dark, 1 supposed I had 
found a friend but there was a good 
Enfield rifle pointing at me, not ten 
feet away, in that gun was an ounce 
ball, behind that ball was sufficient 
powder to blow it a mile, on the gun 
was a water-proof cap, warranted to 
explode every time, and behind the 
whole was a Johnny who understood 
the combination to a nicety. The fact 



was, he had the drop on me, I handed 
him my gun and he threw it into a 
clump of bushes. 

While he was disposing of my case 
another Union soldier crossed his 
guard beat, for he was one of L( ma- 
street's pickets. He called to him To 
lialt but the soldier paying no atten- 
tion to him, he brought his gun to an 
aim and again called, "halt or I'll 
shoot yo." "Don't shoot the man for 
God's sake, he is in your lines," said 
I, and while Johnny was paying his 
addresses to the other soldier, I gave 
a jump and ran like a frightened deer. 
Around the clump of brush I sped,* 
thinking, "now for Chattanooga.'' 
"Hello, Bill ! Where yon going ?" 
"Oh, I had got started for Chatta- 
nooga,but I guess I will go with you," 
and I ran plump into a squad of men 
of my company and regiment under 
guard. 

Men, styling themselves statesmen, 
have stood up in their places in the 
halls of Congress and called prisoners 
of war "Coffee Coolers" and "Black- 
berry Pickers." I give it up. I can- 
not express my opinion, adequately, 
of men who will so sneer at and be- 
little brave men who have fought 
through two days of terrible battle, 
and only yielded themselves prisoners 
of war because they were surrounded 
and overpowered, as did those men at 
Chickamauga. 

The Battle of Chickamauga was 
ended and that Creek proved to be 
what its Indian name implies, a "riv- 
er of deatli." The losses on the Union 
side were over 17,000, and on the 
Confederate side over 22,000. 

I said in the introduction that the 
Chickamauga campaign did not end 
in absolute defeat. And, although 
we were most unmercifully whipped, 
I still maintain that assertion. Gen. 
Grant to the contrary, notwithstand- 
ing. Rosecrans saved Chattanooga 
and that was the bone of contention, 
the prime object of the campaign! 
But it was a case similar to that of an 
Arkansas doctor, who when asked 
how his patients, at a house where he 
was called the night before, were get- 
ting on replied: "Wall, the child is 



6 FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 

deiid and the-ali mother is dead, but pull the old man through all right." 
I'll be dogoned if I don't believe I'll 



CHAPTER II. 



A PRISONER OF WAR. 



"Woe came with war and want with woe; 
And it was mine to undergo 

Each outrage of the rebel foe :"— 

Rokeby, canto 5, verse 18. 
Scott. 

When I had thus unceremoniously 
run into the lion's mouth,l surrendered 
and was marched with my comrades 
a short distance to Gen. Humphrey's 
headquarters and placed under guard. 

I then began to look around among 
the prisoners for those with whom I 
was acquainted. 

Among others. I found Lieut. A. E. 
Patchin and Geo. Hand of my com- 
pany, both wounded. Having had 
considerable experience in dressing 
wounds, at Lieut. Patchin's request, I 
went to Gen. Humphrey and obtained 
written permission to stay with him 
(Patchin) and care for him. Patch in. 
Hand and myself were then marched 
off about half a mile to a field hospi- 
tal, on a small branch or creek, as we 
would say. 

Seating Patchin and Hand by a fire, 
I procured water and having satisfied 
our thirst, I proceeded to dress their 
wounds. We sat up all night, not 
having any blankets, and all night 
long the shrieks and groans of 
wounded and dying men pierced our 

In the morning I went to a rebel 
surgeon and procured a basin, a 
sponge, some lint and bandages, and 
after dressing the wounds of my pa- 
tients. I took such of the wounded 
rebels in my hands as my skill.or lack 
of skill, would permit me td handle. 



I worked all the forenoon relieving 
my late enemies and received the 
thanks and "God bless you, Yank," 
from men who had, perhaps the day 
before, used theii- best skill to kill 
me. Who knows but that a bullet 
from my own gun had laid one of 
those men low ? 

In the afternoon those of the 
wounded Union prisoners who could 
not walk were placed in wagons and 
those who could, under guard and we 
were taken to McLaw's Division hos- 
pital, on Chickamauga Creek. 

On the way to the hospital we 
passed over a portion of the battle- 
field. While marching along I heard 
the groans of a man off to the right 
of the road, I called the guard's at- 
tention to it and together we went to 
the place from whence the sound pro- 
ceeded; there, lying behind a log, we 
found a wounded Union soldier. He 
begged for water saying he had not 
tasted a drop since he was wounded on 
the lt»th,two days before. He was shot 
in the abdomen and a portion of the 
caul, about four inches in length, pro- 
truded from the wound. I gave him 
water, and the guard helped me to 
carry him to the wagon. His name 
was Serg. James Morgan, of some 
Indiana Regiment, the 46th, I think. 
He lived five days. I cared for him 
while he lived. One morning I went 
to see him and found him dead. I 
searched his pockets and found his 
Sergeant's Warrant and a photograph 
of his sister, with her name and post- 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



office address written upon it. These 
I preserved during my fifteen months 
imprisonment and sent to her address 
after I arrived in our lines. I received 
a letter from her thanking me for 
preserving those mementoes of her 
brother; also for the particulars of 
his death. I also received a letter 
from Capt. Studebaker, Morgan's 
brother-in-law, and to whose company 
Morgan belonged, dated at Jonesboro, 
N. C, May 1865, in which he said that 
my letter gave the family the first 
news of the fate of Morgan. 

We arrived at the hospital just be- 
fore night and I proceeded to make 
my patients as comfortable as possi- 
ble. There were at this place 120 
wounded Union soldiers liesides sev- 
eral hundred wounded Confederates. 
Our quarters were the open air. These 
wounded men lay scattered all around, 
in the garden, the orchard, by the 
roadside, any and every where. 

The first night here I sat up all 
night building fires, carrying water 
for the wounded and dressing their 
wounds. Besides myself, there was 
a surgeon of an Illinois Battery and 
James Fadden, of the 10th Wis., who 
had a scalp wound, to care for these 
poor men. and a busy time we had. 
I assisted the surgeon in performing 
amputations, besides my other duties. 

The rebels seemed to think we 
could live without food as they issued 
but three days rations to us in eleven 
days. 

How did we live ? I will tell you. 
On both sides of us was a corn field but 
the rebels had i)icked all the corn but 
we skirmished around and found an 
occasional nubbin which we boiled, 
then shaved off with a knife, making 
the product into mush. Besides this, 
we found a few small pumi)kin3 and 
some elder berries, these we stewed 
and divided among the men. 

About a week after we arrived here, 
I applied to the rebel surgeon in 
charge for permission to kill some of 
the cattle, which were running at 
large, telling him that our men were 
starving. He replied that lie could 
do nothing for us, that he had not 
enough rations for his t)wn men. that 



he could not give me permission to 
kill cattle, as Gen. Bragg had issued 
orders just before the battle author- 
izing citizens to shoot any soldier. R^b 
or Yank, whom they found foiaging. 
But he added tliat he vvosild not "givt" 
me away" if I killed one. I took the 
hint, and hunting up an Enfield rifle 
the Union surgeon and I started 
out for beef. We went into the 
corn field to the east of us where there 
were quite a number of cattle, and 
selecting a nice fat three- year-old 
heifer, I told the doctor that I was 
going to shoot it. He urged me not 
to shoot so large an animal as the citi- 
zens would shoot us for it, and wanted 
me to kill a yearling near l)y. I told 
him '-we might just as well die for 
an old sheep as a lamb," and fired, 
killing the three-year-old. You 
ought to have seen us run after I 
fired. Great Scott ! How we ske- 
daddled. Pell mell we went, out of 
the corn field, over the fence, and into 
the brush. There we lay and watched 
in the direction of two houses, but 
seeing no person after a while we 
went liack to our game. It did not 
take long to dress that animal and 
taking a quarter we carried it back to 
the hospital. We secured the whole 
carcass without molestation and then 
proceeded to give our boys a feast. 
We ate the last of it for l)reakfast the 
next morning, vifter this feast came 
another famine. I tried once more 
to find a beef, but found instead two 
reb citizens armed with shot guns. I 
struck out for tall timber. Citizens 
gave me chase l)ut I eluded them by 
dodging into the canebrakes which 
bordered the creek, thence into the 
creek down which I waded. finally get- 
ting back to the hospital minus my 
gun. 

You may be sure that I did not try 
hunting after this little episode. 

Rosecrans and Bragg had just be- 
fore this made arrangements for the 
exchange of wounded prisoners. Our 
hospitals were at the Cloud Farm. five 
miles north-west from us, and Craw- 
fish Springs, five miles south of Cloud 
Farm . 

The next morning I secured an old 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



rattle-bones of a horse and went over 
to the Cloud Farm for rations. I 
reported to the Provost Marshal on 
Gen. Bragg's staff, and not being able 
to procure any rations here, he sent a 
cavalryman with me as a safe guard. 
We went down to Crawfish Springs, 
where I procured a sack full of hard 
tack and retui-ned to the hospital. 

I traveled fifteen miles that day 
over the battlefield. Such a sight as 
I there saw I hope never to see again. 
This was eleven days after the battle 
and none of our dead had been buried 
then; in fact, the most of our brave 
men who fell at Chickamauga were 
not buried until after the battle of 
Missionary Ridge and the country 
had come in possession of the Union 
forces. The sight was horrible. 
There they lay, those dead heroes, 
just as they fell when stricken with 
whi^tling bullet, or screaming canis- 
ter, or crashing shell. 

So lie of them had been stripped of 
their clothing, all were badly decom- 
posed. The stench was beyond my 
power to tell, or yours to imagine. 
Taken all together it was the most 
horrible scene the eye of man ever 
rested upon. 

Let me try to give the reader a dis- 
cription of what I saw that day. 
When I first reached the battlefield 
my attention was attracted to a num- 
ber of horsemen dressed in Federal 
uniforms. These were evidently 
rebel cavalrymen who had dressed 
themselves in the uniforms of our 
dead soldiers. In every part of the 
field was evidence of the terrible 
havoc of war. Bursted cannons, bro- 
ken gun carriages, muskets, bayonets, 
accoutrements, sabres, swords, can- 
teens, knapsacks, haversacks,sponges, 
rammers, buckets, broken wagons, 
dead horses and dead men were mixed 
and intermingled in a heterogenous 
mass. 

Fatigue parties of rebel soldiers 
and negroes were gleaning the fruits 
of the battlefield. 

In one place I saw cords of muskets 
and rifles piled up in great ricks like 
cord-wood. The harvest was a rich 
one for the Confederacy. 



In one place I saw more than twen- 
ty artillery horses, lying as they had 
fallen, to the rear of the position of a 
Rebel battery, showing the fierce and 
determined resistance of the Union 
soldiers. 

At another place, near where my 
regiment breakfasted on the morning 
of the 19th, a Union battery had 
taken position, it was on the Chatta- 
nooga road and to the rear was heavy 
timber. Here the trees were literally 
cut down by cannon shots from a 
Rebel battery. Some of the trees 
were eighteen or twenty inches in 
diameter. Havoc, destruction, ruin 
and death reigned supreme. In some 
places, where some tierce charge had 
been made, the ground was covered 
with the dead. Federal and Confed- 
erate lay side by side just as they had 
fallen in their last struggle. But 
why dwell on tliese scenes ? They 
were but a companion i)iece to just 
such scenes on a hundred other battle- 
fields of the civil war. 

We remained at the Chickamauga 
hospital for three weeks. Then all 
who could ride in wagons were carried 
to Ringgold, where we took the cars 
for Atlanta. Many of the wounded 
had died and we had buried them 
there on the banks of the "River of 
Death." I presume they have found 
sepulture at last in the National Cem- 
etery, at Chattanooga, along with the 
heroes of Lookout Mountain and Mis- 
sionary Ridge. Peace to their ashes. 
They gave all that men can give, their 
lives, for their coimtry, and we gave 
them the best gifts of comrades, 
honor and a soldier's grave. 

At Ringgold some ladies came into 
the cars and distributed food to our 
party-. It was a kindly but unex- 
pected act, and we appreciated it the 
more as we were nearly starved. We 
traveled all night and arrived at 
Atlanta about 11 o'clock a. m. the 
next day. We were removed to the 
"Pen" and here I was introduced to 
the "Bull Pens" of the South. 

The Prison Pen here was small, 
being used only as a stopping place 
for prisoners en route for Richmond. 
The enclosure was made of boards 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



and was twelve feet in height. On two 
sides were barracks which would 
shelter probably five hundred men. 
In the center was a well of good 
water. The gviards were on the plat- 
forms inside and nearly as high as the 
fence. 

The next day after our arrival the 
Commandant of the Prison put me in 
charge of twenty-one wounded offi- 
cers. These officers elected me nurse, 
commissary general, cook and cham- 
bermaid of the company. 

Our rations were of fair quality but 
of very limited quantity. A fund was 
raised and entrusted to me with in- 
structions to purchase everything in 
the line of eatables that I could get. 

Here we found Gen. Neal Dow, 
sometimes called the father of the 
"Maine Law." He had been taken 
prisoner down near the Gulf and was 
on his way to Richmond for excliange. 

Here we also found Lieut. Mason, 
of the 2nd Ohio Infantry, and he, too, 
had a history. In the latter part of 
April 1862, Gen. Mitchell sent a detail 
of twenty-one men, members of the 
2nd, 21st and 33rd Ohio and a Ken- 
tuckian, named Andrews, I believe, 
on a raid into Central Georgia, with 
instructions to capture a locomotive, 
then proceed north to Chattanooga, 
and to destroy railroads and burn 
bridges on the way. They left us at 
Shelbyville, Tennessee, and went on 
their perilous errand, while we 
marched to the capture of Huntsville, 
as narrated in the introduction. 

These men were the celebrated 
"Engine Thieves" and their story is 
told by one of their number,in a book 
entitled, "Capturing a Locomotive." 
They left our brigade in pairs, travel- 
ing as citizens to Chattanooga, thence 
by rail to Marietta, where they as- 
sembled, taking a return train. The 
train halted at a small station called 
Big Shanty, and while the conductor, 
engineer and train men were at break- 
fast, they uncoupled the train, taking 
the engine, tender and two freight 
cars and pulled out for Chattanooga. 
All went lovely for a time but after 
running a few hours they began to 
meet wild trains wliich had been 



frightened off from the M. & C. R. R. 
by the capture of Huntsville. This 
caused them much delay but And- 
rews, the leader, was plucky and 
claiming that he had a train load of 
ammunition for Chattanooga he con- 
trived at last to get past these trains 
and again sped onward. 

In the meantime the conductor at 
Big Shanty discovered his loss. Tak- 
ing with him the engineer, and two 
officials of the road, they started out 
on foot in pursuit of the fugitive 
train. They soon found a hand-car 
which they took, and forward they 
went in the race, a hand-car in pur- 
suit of a locomotive. Luck favored 
the pursuers, they soon found an en- 
gine, the Yonah, on a Spur road, and 
with steam up, this they pressed into 
the service and away they go. This 
time locomotive after locomotive. 
They pass the blockade of wild trains 
and on they go. As they round a 
curve they see, away ahead, the 
smoke of the fugitive train. The 
engineer pulls the throttle wide open 
and on they go as never went engine 
before. But the fugitives discover 
the pursuers, and at the next curve 
they stop, pull up a rail and put it on 
board their train, and then away with 
the speed of a hurricane. But they 
have pulled up the rail on the wrong 
side of the track and the pursuing 
engine bumps across the ties and on 
they come. Then the fugitives stop 
and pull up another rail and take it 
with them. The pursuers stop at the 
break in the road, take up a rail in 
the rear of their engine, lay it in 
front and then away in pursuit they 
go. The fugitives throw out ties 
upon the track, but the Yonah 
pushes them off as though they were 
splinters. Then the fugitives set fire 
to a bridge but the Yonah dashes 
through fire and on, ever on, like a 
sleuth hound it follows the fugitives. 
Rocks, trees and houses seem to be 
running backward, so swift is the 
flight. But the wood is gone, the oil 
is exhausted, the journals heat, the 
boxes melt and the fugitive engine 
dies on the track. 
But our heroes jump from the train 



10 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



and take to the woods. They are 
pursued with men and blood-hounds, 
are captured and thrown into prison 
and treated as l)rigands. Some die, 
some are hanged, some are exchanged 
and some make their escape. Lieut. 
Mason was of the last named class. He 
was promoted to a 1st Jiieiitenancy, 
fought at Chickamaugain my l.rigade 
and was taken prisoner and identified 
as one of the engine thieves, and held 
for trial. He told me this story 
seated upon a sixty pound ball, which 
was attached to his ankle by a ten 
foot chain. 

Besides the Federal prisoners, there 
were in this prison a number of Union 
men from the mountains of East 
Tennessee and Northern Georgia. 
They were conscripted into the Con- 
federate army, but refused to take 
the oath of allegiance to the Confed- 
eracy. 

We arrived at Atlanta on the 12th 
of October 1863, and on the 18th we 
were put on board of the cars and 
started for Richmond. 

ONWARD TO RICHMOND. 

Leaving Atlanta on the 18th, we 
reached Augusta early on the morn- 
ing of the 19th. There had been 
heavy rains and as the railroad track 
was washed out ahead, we were coin- 
pelled to wait here until the track was 
repaired. We were put into a cotton 
shed and a guard stationed around us. 

No rations had been issued to iis 
since leaving Atlanta. It seemed to 
be part of the duty of the officer in 
charge to forget to feed us, and I 
never saw a man more attentive to 
duty than he was, in that respect. 
However,I procured a pass from him, 
and with a guard, went down town to 
buy food for my squad of wounded 
officers. I found bread in one place 
at a dollar a loaf and at another place 
I bought a gallon of sorgum syrup. 
As my guard and I were looking 
around for something else to eat, we 
met a pompous old fellow who halted 
us and asked who we were. I told 
him that I was a prisoner of war with 
a Confederate guard looking for a 
chance to buy something to eat for 
wounded soldiers. "I will see to 



this," said he. "I will know if these 
Northern robbers and vandals are to 
be allowed to desecrate the streets of 
Augusta." 

I could never dnd out what the peo- 
ple of Augusta lived on during the 
war. I could not find enoiigli food 
for twenty-two men, but I imagine 
that old fellow lived and grew fat on 
his dignity. 

Shortly after my return to the cot- 
ton shed a company of Home guards, 
composed of the wealthy citizens of 
Augusta, marciied up and posted a 
guard around us, relieving our train 
guard. 

The company was couiposed of the 
wealthy men of the city, too rich to 
risk their precious carcasses at the 
front, but not too much of gentlemen 
to abuse and starve prisoners of war. 
They did not allow any more -Yanks" 
to desecrate their sacred streets that 
day. 

Morning came and we bade a long, 
but not a sad, farewell to that Sacred 
City. We crossed the Savannah 
River into the sacred soil of South 
Carolina. Hamburg, the scene of the 
Rebel Gen. Butler's Massacre of 
negroes during Ku-Klux times, lies 
opposite Augusta. 

Onward we went, our old engine 
puffing and wheezing like a heavey 
horse, for by this time the engines on 
Southern railroads began to show tlie 
need of the mechanics who had been 
driven north by the war. Along in 
the afternoon of the 21st. while we 
were yet alioutOO miles froui CoUun- 
bia, S. C, the old engine gave out 
entirely and we were compelled to 
wait for an engine from Cohunbia. 
We arrived at Columbia sometime in 
the uight and as we were in passenger 
cars we did not suffer a great deal of 
fatigue from our long ride. On the 
morning of the 22d as our train was 
leaving the depot a car ran off the 
track which delayed us until noon. 
While the train men were getting the 
car back on the track, I went with a 
guard down into the city to buy ra- 
tions, but not a loaf of bread nor an 
ounce of meat could I procure. 

Columbia was a beautiful city. I 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



11 



never saw snch flower gardens and 
ornamental slirubbery as I saw there, 
but j^ou maj' be sure that I did not 
cry when I heard that it was burned 
down. I don't know whether any 
of those brutes who refused to sell me 
bread for starving, wounded men, 
were burned or not, if they were, they 
got a foretaste of their manifest 
destiny. 

We arrived at Raleigh, N. C, on 
the morning of the 23rd. Here we 
had rations issued to us, consisting of 
bacon and hard tack, and of all the 
HAKD tack I ever saw. that was the 
hardest. We could not bite it,neither 
could we break it with our hands 
until soaked in cold water. 

At Weldon. on the Roanoke River, 
we laid over until the morning of the 
24th. Here we had a chance to wash 
and rest and we needed both very 
much. 

We reached Peteisburg. Va., during 
the night of the 24th and were march- 
ed from the Weldon depot through 
the city and across the Appomatox 
River to the Richmond depot, where 
we waited until morning. 

Midday found us within sight of 
Richmond, the capital of the Confed- 
eracy . 

As the train ran upon the long 
bridge which crosses the James River 
at the upper part of the Falls, we 
looked to our left, "and there, lying 
peacefully in that historic river, was 
Belle Isle, a literal hell on earth. A 
truthful record of the 'sufferings, the 
starvation and the misery imposed 
by the Confederates upon our helpless 
comrades at that place, would cause 
a blush of shame to suffuse the cheek 
of a Comanche chief. 

Arrived on the Richmond side, we 
dragged our weary bodies from the 
cars, and forming into line, were 
marched down a street parallel with 
the river. I suppose it was the niain 
business street of the citv. Trade 



was going on just as though there 
was no war in progress. 

As we were marching past a tall 
brick building a shout of derision sa- 
luted our ears, looking up we saw a 
number of men, clad in Confederate 
gray, looking at our sorry company 
and hurling epithets at us, which 
were too vile to repeat in these pages. 
This was the famous, or perhaps in- 
famous is the better word. Castle 
Thunder. It was a penal prison of 
the Confederacy and within its dirty, 
suioke begrimed walls were confined 
desperate characters from the Rebel 
army, such as deserters, thieves and 
murderers, together with Union men 
from the mountains of Virginia and 
East Tennessee, and Union soldiers 
who were deemed worthy of a worse 
punishment than was afforded in the 
ordinary military prisons. 

Many stories are told of the dark 
deeds comuiitted within the walls of 
that prison. It is said that there were 
dark cells underneath that structure, 
not unlike the cells under the Castle 
of Antonia. near the Temple in Jer- 
usaleui, as described in Ben Hur,into 
which men were cast, there to remain, 
never to see the light of day or 
breathe one breath of pure air until 
death or the fortunes of war released 
them. 

The horrors of the Spanish Inquisi- 
tion in the middle ages were repeated 
here. Men were tied np by their 
thumbs, with their toes barely touch- 
ing the floor, they were bucked and 
gagged and tortured in every con- 
ceivable way, and more for the pur- 
pose of gratifyin.g the devilish hatred 
of their jailors, then because they 
had committed crimes. 

On Ave march past Castle Lightning, 
a similar prison of unsavory reputa- 
tion, to Li1)by Prison, which opened 
its ponderous doors to receive ns. 
But I will reserve a description of 
this ])rison fof another cha])ter. 



CHAPTER III. 



LIBBY PRISON. 

"They entered: — 'twas a prison-room 

Of stern security and gloom, 
Yet not a dungeon ;" — 

The Lady of the Lake, 
Scott. 

Libby Pris )n, up to this time, was 
the most noted and notorious prison 
of the South. It was a large building 
two stories hi ^h on its north or front 
side, and thri'e stories high on its 
south or rear -lide, being built on land 
sloping towar I the James River. 

The buildini- had been used before 
the war as a store for furnishing ship 
supplies. 

Tlie upper story was used as a pri- 
son for officers. Tlie second story 
was divided into three rooms. The 
east room was a hospital, the middle, 
a prison for private soldiers and the 
west room was the office of the pri- 
son officials. The lower story was 
divided into cook room, storage rooms 
and cells. It was down in one of 
these storage rooms, that Major 
Straight's party started their famous 
tunnel. Over the middle door was 
painted 

• THOMAS LIBBY & SON, : 
: Ship Chandlers and Grocers. : 

Across the west end of the building 
the same sign was painted in large 

Before we entered the prison, all 
the commissioned officers were sepa- 
rated from us and sent up into the 
officers rooms and we were registered 
by name, rank, company and regi- 
ment by a smart little fellow dressed 
in a dark blue uniform. This was 



"Majah" Ross, a refugee from Balti- 
more, whose secession sympathies 
took him into Richmond but not into 
the active part of "wah." He was a 
subordinate of "Majah Tunnah," the 
notorious Dick Turner, known and 
cursed by every prisoner who knows 
anything of Libby Prison. 

There seemed to be no person of 
lower rank than "Majah" in the Con- 
federate service. I think the ranks 
must have been filled with them while 
"Gunnels" actetl as file closers. O, 
no, I am mistaken. I did hear after- 
ward of "Copiers of the Gyaard," but 
then, they were only fighting men. 
while these "Majahs" and "Cunnels" 
were civilians acting as prison ser- 
geants. 

Soon after our entrance into the 
Prison we heard some of our officers 
calling from tlie room over our heads. 
They had been appraised of our arri- 
val by the officers who came with us. 
I went to a hole in tlie back part of 
the room and heard my name called 
and was told by the officer speaking 
to come up on the stairs. There was 
a broad stairway leading from our 
floor up to the floor overhead, but the 
hatchway was closed. I went uj) on 
the stairs as requested. A nai'row 
board had been pried up and, looking 
up, I saw Captain Collins whom I had 
not seen since we left tlie line of bat- 
tle together on that eventful 20th of 
September. To say that we were 
rejoiced to see each other is to say 
but little. Questions were asked as 
to the whereabouts of diff'ereut com- 
rades, as to who was dead and who 
alive, and. last but not least, "was I 
hungrv T* Hungrv ! Poor, weak word 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



13 



to express the intense gnawing at my 
stomach. Hungry ! Yes, from head 
to foot, every nerve and fiber of my 
system was hungry. He gave me a 
handfiil of crackers, genuine crackers, 
not hard tack with B. C. marked upon 
them, but crackers. Some of the 
readers of this sketch were there and 
know all about it. Those of you who 
were never in a rebel prison can never 
imagine how good those crackers 
tasted. One man who was there and 
witnessed the above, and who was 
making anxious inquiries for com- 
rades, was Lieutenant G. W. Buffum, 
of the 1st Wisconsin Regiment, now 
the Hon. George W. Butt'um, of Clin- 
ton Falls Township, Steele county, 
Minnesota. Ask him whether I was 
hungry or not. 

While we were talking together 
some one called out the name of some 
comrade. No answer was given. 
Again the name was called and just 
at that instant "Majah"" Ross stepped 
into the room. Down went the strip 
of board aiul we vacated those stai's 
in one time and one motion. But the 
••Majah" had caught that name, or 
one similar to it. and he too became 
desirous of interviewing that individ- 
luil. He called the name over and 
over again, but no response; finally 
becoming exasperated, he swore, with 
a good, round Confederate oath, that 
he would not issue us any rations 
until that man was trotted out. The 
man could not be found and little 
Ross kept his word for two days,then, 
not being able to find him. he issued 
rations to us. Hungry, did you say ? 
Reader just think of it, we were liv- 
ing on less than half rations all the 
time and then to have them all cut 
off for forty-eight hours, was simply 
barbarous, and all to satisfy the 
whim, or caprice, of a little upstart 
rebel who was not fit to black our 
shoes. Yes, it makes me mad yet. 
Do you blame me ? 

Thinking back upon Libby to-day, 
I think it was the best prison I was 
in: — That comparison does not suit 
me, there was no best about it. I 
will say, it was not so bad as any of 
the others I was in. 



There was a hydrant in the room, 
also a tank in which we could wash 
both our bodies and our clothes, soap 
was furnished, and cleanliness, as 
regards the prison, was compnlsoiN 
We scrubbed the floor twirc 
which kept it in good conditioi 

But when we come to talk I'lo', i 
food, there was an immense, an ovu 
powering lack of that. Tlie qiutlily 
was fair,in fact good, considering thai 
we were not particular. But as the 
important question of food or no food, 
turned upon the whims and caprices 
of Dick Turner and Ross, we were 
always in doubt as to whether we 
would get any at all. 

I remained in Libby Prison a week 
when I was removed, with others, to 
Scott's building,an auxilliary of Libby. 
There were four prison buildings 
which were included in the economy 
of Libby Prison. Pemberton, nearly 
opposite to Libby, on the corner of 
15th and Carey streets, I think that 
is the names of those streets. An- 
other building, the name of which I 
did not learn, north of Pemberton on 
15th street, and Scott's building op- 
posite the last mentioned building. 

These three buildings were tobacco 
factoi-ies and the presses were stand- 
ing in Scott's when I was there. 

The rations for all four prisons 
were cooked in the cook-house at 
Libby. The same set of officers had 
charge of all of them, so tliat, to all 
intents and purposes they were (>i.: 
prison, and that prison, Libby. 

Heretofore I had escaped being 
searched for money and valuables.but 
one day a rebel came up and ordevt '1 
all Chickamauga prisoners down to 
the second floor. I did not immedi- 
ately obey his orders and soon there 
was much speculation among us as to 
what was wanted. Some were of the 
opinion that there was to be an ex- 
change of Chickamauga prisoners. 
Others thought they were to be re- 
moved to another prison. To settle 
the question in my own mind I went 
down. I had not got half way down 
the stairs before I found what the 
order meant, for there standing in 
two ranks, open order, were the 



14 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



Chickamauga boys, a rebel to each 
rank, searching them. 

I had but little money. Not enough 
to make them rich, but the loss of it 
would make me poor indeed. I im- 
mediately formed my plan and as 
quickly acted upon it. Going down 
the stairs, I passed to the rear of the 
rear rank, down past the rebel robbers, 
up in front of the front rank, and so 
on back upstairs, past the guard. I 
discovered then and there,that a little 
"cheek" was a valuable commodity 
in rebel prisons. 

We were divided into squads, or 
messes, of sixteen for the purpose of 
dividing rations. 

I was elected Sergeant of the mess 
to which I belonged, and from that 
time until my release had charge of a 
mess. 

Our rations were brought to us by 
men from our own prison and divided 
among the Sergeants of messes, who 
in turn divided it among their res- 
pective men. Each man had his 
number and the bread and meat were 
cut up into sixteen pieces by the Ser- 
geant, then one man turned his liack 
and the Sergeant pointing to a piece, 
asked "whose is this T' "Number 
ten." "Whose is this?" '-Number 
three," and so on until all had been 
supplied. Our rations, while in Rich- 
mond, consisted of a lialf pound of 
very good bread and about two ounces 
of very poor meat per day. Some- 
times varied by the issue of rice in 
the place of meat. Sometimes our 
meat was so maggoty that it was 
white with them, but so reduced were 
we by hunger that we ate it and 
would have been glad to get enough, 
even of that kind. 

To men blessed with an active 
mind and body, the confinement of 
prison life is exceeding irksome, even 
if plenty of food and clothing, with 
good beds and the luxuries of life, are 
furnished them, but when their 
food is cut down to the lowest limit 
that will sustain life, and of a quality 
at which a dog, possessed of any self- 
respect, would turn up his nose in 
disgust, with a hard floor for a bed, 
with no books nor papers with which 



to feed their minds, with brutal men 
for companions, with no change of 
clothing, with vermin gnawing their 
life out day after day, and month 
after month, it is simply torture. 

Time hung heavy on our hands. We 
got but meagre news from tlie front 
and this came through rebel sources, 
and was so colored in favor of the 
rebel army, as to I)e of little or no 
satisfaction to us. The news that 
Meade had crossed tlie Rapidan, or 
had recrossed the Rapidan, had be- 
come so monotonous as to be a stand- 
ing joke with us. Our first question 
to an Army of the Potomac man in 
the morning would be, -'has Meade 
crossed the Rapidan yet tliis morn- 
ing T' This frequently led to a skir- 
mish in wliich some one usually got a 
bloody nose. 

News of exchange came frequently 
but exchange did not come. Some- 
body would start the story tliat a 
cartel had been agreed upon, then 
would come a long discussion upon 
the probabilities of the truth of die 
story. The rebels always told prison- 
ers that they were going to be ex- 
changed whenever they moved them 
from one point to another. This kept 
the ]>risouers quiet and saved extra 
guards on the train. 

While we were at Richmond we had 
no well concerted plan for killing 
time for Ave were looking forward 
hopefully to the time when we should 
be exchanged, but we learned at last 
to distrust all rumors of exclmnge and 
all other promises of good to us for 
hope was so long deferred that our 
hearts became sick. 

We were too much disheartened to 
joke but occasionally something would 
occur which would cause us to laugh. 
It would be a sort of dry laugh, more 
resembling the crackling of parcliment 
but it was the best we could a.ft"ord 
under the circumstances and had to 
pass muster for a laugh. 

One day salt was issued to us and 
nothing but salt. I suppose "Majah" 
Turner thought we could eat salt and 
that Avould cause us to drink so much 
water that it would fill us up. A Ger- 
man, who could not talk English, was 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



15 



not present when the salt was divided. 
He afterward learned that salt had 
been issued and went to the Sergeant 
of his mess and called, "zult, zult." 

"What?" Said the Sergeant. 

"Zult. zult." said Dutchy. 

"0, salt ! The salt is all gone. All 
been divided. Salt ausgespiel," says 
the Sergeant. 

"Zult, zult !" says Duchy. 

"Go to h — 1" says the Sergeant. 

"Var ish der hell ?" And then we 
exploded. 

I remained in Richmond until Nov- 
vember 24th, when I, with 699 other 
piisoners was removed to Danville, 
Va. 

We were called out before daylight 
in the morning. Each man taking 
with him his possessions. Mine con- 
sisted of an olil oil-cloth blanket, and 
a haversack containing a knife and 
fork and tin plate, also one day's ra- 
tions. We formed line and marched 
down 15th street to Carey, and up 
Carey street a few blocks, then across 
the wagun bridge to the Danville de- 
pot. Here we were stowed in box 
cars at the rate of seventy prisoners 
and four guards in each car. A little 



arithmetical calculation will show the 
reader that each of us had a fraction 
over three square feet at our disposal. 
Stock buyers now-a-days allow sixty 
hogs for a car load, and with larger 
cars than we had. Don't imagine, 
however, that I am instituting any 
comparison between a car load of 
hogs and a car load of prisoners: — it 
would be uujust to the hogs, so far as 
comfort and cleanliness go. 

Our train pulled out from the depot, 
up the river, past the Tredegar Iron 
Works.and on toward Danville. Our 
"machine" was on old one and leaked 
steam in every seam and joint. Some- 
times the track would spread apart, 
then we would stop and spike it down 
and go ahead. At other times the old 
engine would stop from sheer exhaus- 
tion, then we would get out and walk 
up the grade, then get on board and 
away again. Thus we spent twenty- 
four hours going about one hundred 
and fifty miles. During the night 
some of the prisoners jumped from 
the cars and made their escape, but I 
saw them two days afterward,bucked 
and gagged, in the guard-house at 
Danville. 



CHAPTER IV. 



DANVILLE PEISON. 

"So within the prison cell, 

We are waiting for the day 
That shall come to open wide the iron door, 

And the hollow eye grows bright, 
And the poor heart almost gay, _ 
As we think of seeing home and friends 
once more." 
We arrived at Danville on the 
morning of November 25tli, and were 
directly marched into prison No. 2. 
There were six ]irison buildings here, 
all tobacco factories. Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 
4 being on the public square. Nos. 2 
and 3 being on the west side. No. 1 
on the north side adjoining a canal, 
and No. 4 on the south side. The 
other prisons were in other parts of 
the city. 

In each prison was confined 700 
men. Each building was three stories 
high with a garret, making four 
floors in each prison. Thus we had 
175 men on each floor. The prisons 
were, as near as 1 can guess, 30x00 
feet so that we had an average of ten 
and one-third square feet to each man 
or a little more than a square yard 
apiece. 

Our rations at first consisted of a 
half pound of bread, made from 
wheat shorts and about a quarter of a 
pound of pork or beef. The quality 
was fair. 

I had for a "chum," or "pard, 
from the time I arrived at Atlanta 
until I came to Danville, an orderly 
Sergeant, of an Lidiana Regiment, by 
the name of Billings. He was a 
graduate of an Eastern College and at 
the time he enlisted left the position 
of Principal of an Academy in In- 
diana. He was one of nature's noble- 
men, intelligent, brave, true-hearted 



and generous to a fault. I was very 
much attached to him as he was a gen- 
ial companion far above the common 
herd. But after I had been in Dan- 
ville about a week, I learned that 
there were a number of the comrades 
of my company in Prison No. 1. So 
I applied for, and obtained, permission 
to move over to No. 1. I parted with 
Billings with regret. I have never 
seen him since and know nothing of 
his fate, but I imagine he fell a vic- 
tim to the hardships and cruelties of 
those prisons. 

I found, when I arrived in No. 1, 
not only members of my own company 
but a number of men from Company 
B of my regiment. We were quar- 
tered in the south-east corner on the 
second floor. Nearly opposite where 
I was located comrade Dexter Lane, 
then a member of an Ohio regiment, 
now a citizen of Merton, Steele coun- 
ty, Minnesota, had his quarters. We 
were strangers at that time but since 
then have talked over that prison life 
until we have located each other's 
position, and feel that we are old 
acquaintances. 

I think I did not feel so lonesome 
after I joined my comrades of the 
10th Wis. There is something pecu- 
liar about the feelings of old soldiers 
towards each other. Two years be- 
fore these men were nothing to me. 
I had never seen them until I joined 
the regiment at Milwaukee. But 
what a change those two years had 
wrought. We had camped together 
on the tented field and lain side by 
side in the bivouac. We had touched 
elbows on those long, weary marches 
through Kentucky. Tennessee. Ala- 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IX DIXIE. 



17 



bama and Georgia, had stood shoulder 
to shoulder in many hard fought bat- 
tles, and now we are companions in 
Southern prisons. They were not as' 
kind-heartea, nor as intelligent as 
Billings but there was the feeling of 
comradeship which no persons on 
earth understand as do old soldiers. 

The "majah" in charge of Prison 
No. 1 was a man by the name of 
Charley Brady, a southern gentleman 
from Dublin or some other seaport of 
the "Green Isle,'" and to his credit, I 
will say, he was a warm hearted Irish 
gentlemen. I do not call to mind any 
instance where he was unnecessarily 
harsh or cruel, but on the other hancl, 
he was kind and pleasant in his man- 
ner and in his personal intercourse 
with us treated us as though we were 
human beings in marked contrast 
with the treatment of the prison offi- 
cials who were genuine Southerners 
brought up under the influences of 
that barbarous institution, slavery. 

Perhaps some of my readers who 
were confined in Prison No. 1 will 
not agree with me in my estimate of 
Charley Brady, Vnit if they will stop a 
moment and consider, tliey will re- 
member that our harsh treatment 
came from the guai'ds who were a 
separate and distinct institution in 
prison economy, or was the result of 
infringement of piison rules. 

About a week after my arrival in 
No. 1 some of tlie prisoners on the 
lower floor were detected in the at- 
tempt to tunnel out. They had gone 
into the basement and started a tun- 
nel with the intention of making 
their escape. They were driven up 
and distributed on the other three 
floors. This gave us about two hun- 
dred and thirty men to a floor and 
left us about eight square feet to the 
person. 

About this time the cook-house was 
completed and we had a radical 
change of diet. There were twelve 
large kettles, set in arches, in which 
oar meat and soup were cooked. Be- 
fore proceeding farther let we say, 
that the cooking was done here for 
3.500 men. 



Our soup was made by boiling the 
meat, then putting in cabbages, or 
"cow peas" or "nigger peas," or stock 
peas, (just suit yourself as to the name, 
they were all one and the same) and 
filling up AD LIBITUM with water. 
The prisons first served were usually 
best served for if the supply was like- 
ly to fall short a few pails full of Dan 
River water supplied the deficiency. 

Our allowance was a bucket of soup 
to sixteen men, enough of it, such as 
it was, for the devil himself never in- 
vented a more detestable compound 
than that same "bug soup." Tlie 
peas from which this soup was made 
were filled with small, hard shelled, 
black bugs, known to us as pea bugs. 
Their smell was not unlike that of 
chinch bugs but not nearly as strong. 
Boil them as long as we might, they 
were still hard shelled bugs. The first 
pails full from a kettle contained more 
bugs, the last ones contained more 
Dan River water, so that it was Hob- 
son's choice which end of the supply 
we got. 

(I notice tliere is considerable in- 
quiry in agricultural papers as to 
these same cow peas whether they 
are good feed for stock. My experience 
justifies me in expressijig the opinion 
that you "don't have" to feed them to 
stock, let them alone and the luigs 
will consume them.) 

Our supply of shorts bread was dis- 
continued and corn bread substituted. 
This was baked in large pans, the 
loaves being about ■ two and a half 
inches in thickness. This bread was 
made by mixing meal with water, 
without shortening or lightening of 
any kind. It was baked in a very 
hot oven and the result was a very 
hard crust on top and bottom of loaf, 
and raw meal in the center. 

The water-closets of the four pris- 
ons, which surrounded the square, 
were drained into the canal already 
mentioned, and as the drains dis- 
charged their filth into the canal up 
stream from us, we were compelled 
to drink this terrible compound of 
water and human excrement, for we 
procured our drinking and cooking 
water from this same canal. 



18 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



The result of this kind of diet und 
drinlc was, tluit almost every man 
was atta(;ked with a very aggravated 
form of camp diarrliea, whicli in 
time became chronic. Many poor 
fellows were carried to their graves, 
and many more are lingering out a 
miserable existence to-day as a result 
of drinking that terrible hell-broth. 
And there was no excuse for this, for 
not more than ten rods north of the 
canal was a large spring just in the 
edge of Dan River, which would have 
furnished water for tiie whole city of 
Danville. The guards simply refused 
to go so far. 

Some of the men attempted to make 
their escape while out to the water- 
closet at night. One poor fellow 
dropped down from the side of the 
cook-house, which formed part of the 
enclosure, and fell into a large kettle 
of hot water. This aroused the 
guard and all were captured on the 
spot. This occurred before the cook- 
house had been roofed over. 

So many attempts were made to 
escape, that only two were allowed 
to go out at a time after dark. The 
effect of this rule can be partly im- 
agined but decency forbids me to 
describe it. Suffice it to say that 
with nearly seven hundred sick men 
in the building it was awful beyond 
imagination. 

We resorted to almost every expe- 
dient to pass away time. We organ- 
ized debating clubs and the author 
displayed his wonderful oratorical 
powers to the no small amusement of 
the auditors. Well, I have this satis- 
faction, it did them no hurt and did 
me a great deal of good. 

Two members of my regiment 
worked in the cook-house during the 
day, returing to prison at night. They 
furnished our mess with plenty of beef 
bones. Of these we manufactured 
rings, tooth picks and stilettos. We 
became quite expert at the business, 
making some very fine articles. Our 
tools were a common table knife 
which an engineer turned into a saw, 
with the aid of a file, a broken bladed 
pocket knife, a flat piece of iron and 
some brick-bats. The iron and l)rick 



were used to grind our bones down to 
a level surface. 

We also procured laurel root, of 
•which we manufactured pipe bowls. 
Carving them out in fine style. 1 
made one which I sold for six dollars 
to a reb, but I paid the six dollars for 
six pounds of salt. 

I hope my readers will remember 
the saw-knife described above, as it 
will be again introduced in a little 
scene which occurred in Anderson- 
ville. 

Some one of our mess had the super- 
annuated remains of a pack of cards, 
greasy they were and dog-eared, but 
they served to while away many a 
weary hour. One evening our old 
German who war^ted "zult," enter- 
tained us with a Punch and Judy 
show. The performance was good, 
but I failed to appreciate his talk. 

But what w-e all enjoyed most was 
the singing. There was an excellent 
quartette in our room and they car- 
ried us back to our boyhood days by 
singing such songs as, "Home, Sweet 
Home," "Down upon the Swanee 
River," and "Annie Laurie." When 
they sang patriotic songs all who 
could sing joined in the chorus. We 
made that old rebel prison ring with 
the strains of "The Star Spangled 
Banner," "Columbia's the Gem of the 
Ocean," and the like. The guards 
never objected to these songs and I 
have caught the low murmur of a 
guard's voice as he joined in "-Home, 
Sweet Home." But when w^e sang 
the new songs which had come out 
during the war, such as, "Glory! 
Glory! Hallelujah !" and the "Battle 
Cry of Freedom," they were not so 
well pleasAl. 

We use to tease them by singing, 

"We will hang Jeff Davis on a sour 
apple tree, 

As we go maching on.'" 

And — 
"We are springing to the call fiom 
• the east and from the west, 

Shouting the battle cry of freedom. 
And we'll hurl the rebel crew from 
the land we love the best. 

Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.'' 

About that time a guard would call 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



19 



out. "Yo', Yanks up dah, yo' stop flat 
kyind of singing or I'll shoot."" 
"Shoot and he daiBmed." — 

"For we'll hurl the rebel crew from 
the land we love the best, &c," 
would ling out loud and clear for an 
answer, and then bang would go the 
guard's gun, answered by a yell of 
derision from the prison. 

We suffered very much from cold 
that winter at Danville for we had no 
fire. It is true we had a stove and 
some green, sour gum wood was fur- 
nished but it would not burn, and 
then we made some weak and futile 
attempts to burn stone coal but it 
was a failure. The proportions were 
not riglit, there was not coal enough 
to heat the stone, and so we went 
without fire. 

For bedding. I had an oil-cloth 
blanket and my "pard" had a woolen 
blanket. But an oil-cloth blanket 
spread on a hard floor, does not "lie 
soft as downy pillows are."" It did 
seem as though my hips would bore a 
bole through the floor. 

One day a rebel officer with two 
guards came in and ordered all the 
men down from the third and fourth 
floors, then stationing a guard at the 
stairs, he ordered them to come u}), 
two at a time. 

I was in no hurry this time to see 
what was going on, so I awaited fur- 
ther developements. Soon after the 
men had commenced going up, a note 
fluttered down from over head. I 
picked it up. on it was written, "They 
are searching us for money, knives, 
watches and jewelry."' Word was 
passed around and all who had valua- 
bles began to secrete them. I had 



noticed that this class of fellows were 
expert at finding anything secreted 
about the clothing, so I tried a plan 
of my own. Taking my money I 
rollecl it up in a small wad and stuffed 
it in my pipe. I then filled my pipe 
with tobacco, lit it and let it burn 
long enough to make a few ashes on 
top, then let it go out. Then I went 
up stairs with my haversack. The 
robbers took my knife and fork, but 
did not find my money. 

A Sergeant of a Kentucky Regi- 
ment saved a gold watch by secreting 
it in a loaf of liread. Lucky fellow, 
to be the owner of a whole loaf of 
bread. 

Small-pox broke out among us 
shortly after oui- arrival at Danville. 
Every day some poor fellow was car- 
ried out, and sent off to the pest house 
up the river. 

Al)Out the I7th of December, a Hos- 
])ital Steward, one of our men, came 
in and told us he had come in to vac- 
cinate allot us who desired it. I had 
been vaccinated when a small boy, 
but concluded I would try and see if 
it would work again. It did. Many 
of the men were vaccinated as the 
Steward assured them that the virus 
was pure. Pure ! Yes, so is strych- 
nine pure. It was pure small-pox 
virus, except where it was vitiated 
by the virus of a disease, the most 
loathsome and degrading of any 
known to man, leprosy alone excepted. 
We were innoculated and not vacci- 
nated. On the 26th I was very sick, 
had a high fever and when the sur- 
geon came around I was taken out to 
the Hospital. 



CHAPTER V. 



"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust! 
And freeze thou bitter-biting frost ! 

Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows ! 
Not all your rage, as now united shows 

More hard unkindness, unrelenting. 
Vengeful malice unrepenting. 

Than heaven illumined man on brother man 
bestows!" Burns. 

After I left the prison, I was 
marched around to three other pris- 
ons and waited outside while the Sur- 
geon went through them to visit the 
sick. It was a damp, chilly day, and 
I was so sick and tired and my bones 
ached so badly that I was compelled 
to lie down upon the cold, wet, stone 
sidewalk, while the Surgeon went 
through the prisons. But ail things 
earthly have an end, so did that Sur- 
geon's visits,and 1 was at last marched 
to the Hospital. 

Here allow me to describe the Hos- 
pital buildings. There were four of 
them; three stood on the hill at the 
south part of the city, the fourth was 
on the banks of the river, near the 
Eichmond Railroad bridge. They 
were about 40x120 feet and two 
stories high, with a hall running the 
whole length, dividing them into 
wards, each Ijuilding contained four 
wards. They were erected in 1862 
for the use of the wounded in the 
celebrated Peninsular Campaign. 

To the rear of the north hospital 
building was the pest-house, a defunct 
shoe shop, in which convalescent 
shoemakers, who were soldiers in the 
rebel army, worked for the benefit of 
the C. S. A. To the rear of the cen- 
ter building was the cook-house and 
eating room, where convalescents 
took their meals, and to the rear of 
the cook-house stood the dead house, 



where the dead were placed prior to 
burial. To the rear of the south 
building was the bakery, where all the 
bread of the hospital and prisons was 
baked. This arrangement brought 
the three hospital buildings in a line, 
while the bakery, dead house and 
pest-house were in a line to the rear. 
A line of guards paced their beats 
around the whole. 

I supposed when I was sent to the 
hospital that I had fever of some 
kind, but in two days the soreness of 
my throat and the pustules on my face 
and hands told the story too plainly, 
that the innoculation of a few days 
before was doing its work. I was 
down with a mild form of small-pox, 
varioloid, the doctors called it, but a 
Tennessee soldier pronounced it a 
case of the "Very Lord." I was 
taken from the hospital to the pest- 
house and laid on a straw pallet. My 
clothes were taken from me and sent 
to the wash-house and I was given a 
thin cotton shirt and a thin quilt for 
a covering. 

The pest-house was but a slim 
affair, being built for summer use. 
It stood upon piles four feet high, was 
boarded up and down without battens 
and as the lumber was green when 
built, the cracks were half an inch in 
width at this time. 

January 1st, 1864, was a terribly 
cold day. The Rebel Steward think- 
ing we were not getting air enough, 
opened two windows in the ward I 
was in and then toasted himself at a 
good fire in another ward. I was 
charitably inclined and wished from 
the bottom of my heart that that 
Steward might have the benefit of a 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IX DIXIE. 



21 



hot fire, both here and hereafter. 

I nearly froze to death that day. 
My limbs were as cold as those of a 
corpse, but relief came about nine 
o'clock that night in the shape of a 
pint of hot crust coffee whicli I placed 
between my feet until all the heat 
had passed into my limbs, which, 
with constant rubbing, thawed me 
out. 

Our rations at the hospital consist- 
ed of a slice of wheat bread and a 
half pint of thick beef soup, this was 
given us twice a day. 

After staying in the pest-house a 
week a suit of clothes was given me 
and I was sent to Hospital No. 3, 
which had been turned into a small- 
pox hospital. Nearly forty per cent, 
of the Danville prisoners had small- 
pox yet the death rate was not high 
from that disease; diarrhea and 
scurvy were the deadly foes of the 
prisoners, and swept them off as with 
a besom. 

After I had regained strength I 
entered into an agreement with lialf 
a dozen others to attempt an escape. 
Our plan was to get into a ditch 
which was west of the dead house, 
crawl down that past the guard into 
a ravine, and then strike for the Blue 
Ridge Mountains, thence following 
some stream to the Ohio River. But 
the moon was at the full at the time 
and we w^ere compelled to Avait for a 
dark night. There is an old saying 
that a "watched pot never boils," so 
it was in our case;i)efore a dark niglit 
came we were sent back to prison. 

Exchange rumors were current at 
this time. We talked over the good 
times we would have when we got 
back into "God's country." We 
swore eternal abstinence from bag 
soup and corn bread, and promised 
ourselves a continual feast of roast 
turkey, oysters, beefsteak, mince pies, 
warm biscuit and honey, but here 
came a difference of opinion, some 
voted for mashed potatoes and butter, 
others for baked potatoes and gravy. 
There were many strong advocates of 
each dish. The mashed potatoe men 
affirmed that a man had no more taste 
than an ostrich who did not think 



that mashed potatoes and butter 
were ahead of anything else in that 
line; while the baked potatoe men 
sneeringly insinuated that the mashed 
potatoe men's mothers or wives did 
not know how to bake potatoes just 
to the proper yellow tint, nor make 
gravy of just the right consistency 
and richness. The question was 
never settled until it was settled by 
each man selecting his own particular 
dish after months more of starvation. 

There was restiveness among the 
men all tlie time, hunger and naked- 
ness were telling upon their spirits as 
well as their health. I lay it dowm as 
a maxim that if you want to find a 
contented and good natured 
man, you must select a well 
fed and comfortaldy clothed man. 
Philosophize as much as you will 
upon the sul)ject of diet but the fact 
remains that w' e are all more or less 
slaves: — to appetite. 

During the month of December a 
number of the prisoners in No. 3 at- 
tempted a jail delivery by crawling 
out through the drain of the water- 
closet. They were detected however 
and most of them captured and re- 
turned to prison. Among those who 
got away w^as .John Squires, of Co. K. 
10th Wis. He had i)art of a rebel 
uniform and managed to keep clear 
of the Home guards for a number of 
days, but was finally captured and 
returned to prison. But this did not 
discourage him. He had finished out 
his uniform while at large and was 
ready to try it again at the first op- 
portunity. But Johnny was no Micaw- 
ber who waited for something to turn 
up; he made his own opportunities. 
One day he took his knife and un- 
screwed the "catch" of the door lock 
and walked out, as he passed through 
the door he turned to his fellow pris- 
oners and remarked "Now look he'ah 
yo' Yanks, if yo" don't have this 
flo'ah cleaned when I git back yo'll 
git no ration to-day." Then turning 
he saluted the guard, walked down 
stairs, saluted the outer guard. walked 
across the square, over the l)ridge, 
passing two guards, past where a 
number of rebel soldiers were work- 



22 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IX DIXIE. 



ing on a fort and on to "God's Coun- 
try" where lie arrived after weeks of 
wandering and hunger and cold in 
the Blue Ridge Mountains and the 
valleys of West Virginia: — another 
case of "cheek." 

One day a rebel Chaplain came into 
our prison and preached to us. He 
informed us with a great deal of cir- 
cumlocution that he was Chaplain of 
a Virginia Regiment, that he was a 
Baptist minister, and that his name 
was Chaplain. He then proceeded to 
hurl at our devoted heads some of 
the choicest selections of fiery ex- 
tracts, flavored with brimstone to be 
found in the Bible. In his his con- 
cluding prayer he asked the Lord to 
forgive us for coming into the South 
to murder and burn and destroy and 
rob, at the same time intimating that 
he, himself, could not do it. I sup- 
pose he felt better after he had 
scorched us and we felt just as well. 
He would have had to preach to us a 
long time before he co.uld have made 
us believe that there was a worse 
place than rebel prisons. 

One source of great discomfort, yea. 
torture, was body lice, "grey-backs," 
in army parlance. They swarmed 
upon us, they penetrated into all the 
seams of our clothing. They went 
on exploring expeditions on all parts 
of our bodies, they sapped the juices 
from our flesh, they made our days, 
days of woe, and our nights, nights of 
bitterness and cursing. We could not 
get hot water,our unfailing remedy in 
the army. Our only resource was 
"skirmishing." This means stripping 
our clothes and hunting them out: — 
and crushing them. 

On warm days it was a common 
sight to see half of the men in the 
room with their shirts off, skirmish- 
ing. 

One day, a number of Reb. citizens 
came in to see the Yanks.'' Among 
them was a large finely built young man. 
He was dressed in the height of fash- 
ion and evidently belonged to the F. 
F. Vs. We were skirmishing when 
they came in, and young F. F. V. 
strutted through the room, with his 
head up, like a Texas steer in a Ne- 



braska corn field. His nose and lips 
suggested scorn and disgust. Thinks 
I, "my fine lad I'll fix ycm.'Must as he 
passed me I threw a large "Grey-back'' 
on his coat; many of the prisoners saw 
the act, and contributed their mite to 
the general fund, and by the time 
young F. F. V. had made the circuit 
of the room, he was well stocked with 
Grey-Viacks. It is needless to add he 
never visited us again. 

Scurvy and diarrhea were doing 
their deadly work even at Danville. 
These diseases were due, largely, to 
causes over which the rebels had con- 
trol. 

Dr. Joseph Jones, a bitter rebel, 
professor of Medical Chemistry, at 
the Medical College in Augusta, was 
sent by the Surgeon General of the 
Confederate army, to investigate and 
report upon the cause of the extreme 
mortality in Ahdersonville. He ^at- 
tributed scurvy to a lack of vegetable 
diet and acids. Diarrhea and dysen. 
tery, he said, were caused by the fil- 
thy conditions by which we were sur- 
rounded, polluted water, and the fact 
that the meal from which our bread 
was made wasnot sejjarated from the 
husk. 

There have been many stories told 
with relation to this meal; let mt* 
make some things ])lain. and then 
there will not be the apparent con- 
tradiction, that there is at present in 
the public mind. 

The difference in opinion arises 
from the different interpretations of 
the word "husk." 

A true northern man understands 
husk to mean; — the outer covering 
of the ear of corn; while a southerner, 
or Middle States, m.an calls it a 
"shuck." 

The husk referred to by Dr. Jones, 
would be called by a northerner, the 
"hull," or bran. His meaning was 
that it was unsifted. 

The fetid waters of the canal, the 
unsifted corn meal made into half 
baked bread, and a lack of vegetables 
and acids, together with the rigid 
prison rules, which resulted in filth, 
and stench, beyond description, were 
the prime causes of the great mortal- 



rirTEE:N' months in dixie 



23 



ity at Danville. During the five 
months in which I was confined at 
Danville, more than 500 of 4,200 pri- 
soners died, or about one in eight. 

Our clothing too, was getting old, 
many of the men had no shoes, others 
were almost naked. Our government 
sent supplies of food and clothing to 
us, but they were subjected to such a 
heavy toll that none of the food, and 
but little of the clothing ever reached 
us, and what little was distributed to 
our men was soon traded to the 
guards for bread, or rice, or salt. I 
never received a mouthful of food, or 
a stitch of clothing which came 
through the lines. 

In February reports came to us that 
the Confederate government was 
building a large prison stockade some- 
where down in Georgia, and that we 
were to be removed to it; that our 
government had refused to exchange 
prisoners, and that we were -'in for it 



during the war." 

About the 1st of April 1864 the 
prisoners in one of the buildings were 
removed. The prison officials said 
they had gone to City Point to be 
exchanged, but one of the guards told 
us they had gone to Georgia. But we 
soon found out the truth of the 
matter for on the 15th we were all 
taken from No. 1 and put on board 
the cars. We were stowed in at the 
rate of sixty jirisoners, and four 
guards to a car. 

The lot of my mess fell to a car 
which had been used last, for the 
conveyance of cattle. No attempt 
had lieen made to clean the car and 
we were compelled to kick the filth 
out the best we could with our feet. 

Our train was headed toward Kich- 
mond and the guards swore upon 
their "honah" that we were bound for 
City Point to be exchanged. 



A LETTER FROM COMRADE DEXTER LANE. 



Since the foregoing chapter was 
printed in Thk People's Press, we 
have received the following endorse- 
ment of the story from a comrade 
who knows now it was by a personal 
experience. Editor. 

Merton, Minn., March 26, '89. 
Editor People's Press: 

I have been much interested in pe- 
rusing a series of articles published in 
The People's Press from the pen of 
Hon. W. W. Day, Lemond, giving rem- 
iniscences of army life, what he 
saw and experienced while 
held a prisoner of war in 
vario\is prisons in the South during 
the late Rebellion. I confess an ad- 
ditional interest, perhaps, in the story 
above the casual reader from the fact 
that I, too, was a guest of the south- 
ern chivalry from Sept. 20th, 1863, 
until the May following. In company 
with the boys of the 124th Ohio, I 
attended that Chickamauga Picnic. 
There were no girls to cast a modi- 
fying influence over the Johnnies, or 
any one else. As early as the morn- 
ing of the 19tli, something got crooked 
producing no little confusion and ex- 
citement, which increased as the 
hours wore away, up to the afternoon 
of the following day, when siuldenly 
it seemed that that whole corner of 
Georgia was turned into one grand 
pandemonium. Everything that 
could be gotten loose was let 
loose, many a boy got hurt that day 
badly. Some bare-footed gyrating, 
thing got onto my head, worked in 
under the hair, and twitched me 
down. It brought about a quiescence 
quicker than any dose of morijhia I 
ever swallowed, and I have eaten lots 
of it since that time; I can feel its 

toes to-day. 

Time passed, night was approach- 
ing, when several Johnnies ap- 
proached, one of whom came up to 
where I was sitting on the ground, 
and spoke to inc. The man was a 



blamed poor talker, but I understood 
fully what was wanted, and acqui- 
esced promptly. The outcome of 
which was, 1 was toddled off to At- 
lanta; from thence to Richmond and 
Danville, Va. I make no attempt to 
write of my own personal adventures, 
or prison experience. Much of it, 
with but few exceptions, as well as 
the experience of thousands of others, 
may be gleaned from the papers of 
Comrade Day. For a time I owned 
and occupied a chalk mark, as my 
bed, on the same floor witli Comrade 
Day at Danville, and I wish to say, 
what he lias written of the rebel 
management of tliose prisons, both at 
Richmond and Danville, the general 
treatment of prisoners, rations, in 
kind quantity, quality, manner of 
cooking. &c., &c., are tlie cold facts. 
Many incidents and happenings which 
he refers to in his narrative came to 
my own personal observation, and as 
related by him accord fully with my 
recollections of them at the time of 
their occurrence. In fact I heartily 
endorse, as being substantially true, 
every word of tlie Comrade's Prison 
experiences, exfept. i)erhai)s. liis ref- 
erence to Belle Isle. I think his state- 
ment there iniliibes a little of the im- 
aginary, when he characterizes the 
place as a literal -'hell on earth." 
Where did he get his facts'? That's 
the puzzle. No matter, if he were 
there — It is a small matter however, 
and may be true after all. I know 
something of Belle Isle, but have only 
this to say, if the emperor of the in- 
fernal regions, who is said to reign 
below the great divide, has a hole 
anywhere in his dominions, filled with 
souls that are undergoing pains and 
miseries equaling those to which our 
boys were subjected on Belle Isle, I 
pray God I may escape it. 

Dexter Lane. 



CHAPTER VI. 



EN ROUTE TO ANDERSONVILLE. 

"Tis a weary life this — 
Vaults overhead and gates and bars around 
me, 
And my sad hours spent with as sad com- 
panions, 
Whose thoughts are brooding o'er their own 
mischances, 
Far, far too deeply to take part in mine." 
•^ -Scott. 

As the train pulled out of Danville 
that morning, our hopes began to 
rise in proportion to the distance we 
placed between ourselves and our late 
prison. 

We had now been in the Confeder- 
ate prisons seven months, and we had 
high hopes that our guards were tell- 
ing us the truth, for once. 

I am not prepared to say that the 
people of the South are not as truth- 
ful as other people; but I will say, 
that truth was a commodity, which 
appeared to be very scarce with our 
guards. 

When we left the Danville prison, 
we took with us, contrary to orders, 
a wooden bucket belonging to my 
mess. 

The way we stole it out of prison 
was this. One of the men cut a num- 
ber into each stave, then knocked off 
the hoops and took it down, dividing 
hoops, staves and bottom among us, 
these we rolled up in our blankets and 
keeping together we entered the same 
car. After the train had started we 
unrolled our blankets, took out the 
fragments of bucket, and set it up 
again. This was a very fortunate 
thing for us, as it furnished us a ves- 
sel in which to procure water on that 
long and dreary trip. 

Nothing of note occurred until we 
reached Burkeville Junction, near the 
scene of the collapse of the 
Confederacy. Here we were 

switched off from the Rich- 
mond road on to the Petersburg 
road. Some of us who were least 
hopeful considered this a bad omen; 



others argued that it was all right, as 
we could take cars from Petersburg 
to City Point. Among the latter class 
were some men who had been prison- 
ers before, and were supposed to 
know more than the rest of us about 
the modes of exchange. We there- 
fore said no more and tried hard to 
believe that all would end well. 

We arrived at Petersbui-g a little 
before midnight. We were immed- 
iately marched across the Appomattox 
River bridge into Petersburg. As we 
were marching along I noticed a large 
building, whicli I recognized as one 
I had seen the previous November, 
while we were marching through this 
place on our way to Richmond. I told 
the boys we Avere going to the Wel- 
don Depot, the right direction for the 
South. The hopeful ones still insisted 
that it was all right, but 1 could not 
see it that way But the question was 
soon settled, for we arrived at the 
Weldon Depot in a short time. How 
our hearts sank within us as we came 
to the low sheds and buildings, which 
form the Station of the Petersburg 
and Weldon R. R. Heretofore during 
the day, "God's Country," and home 
had seemed very near to us, but now 
all these hopes were suddenly dashed 
to the. ground, and dark despair, like 
a black pall, enshrouded us. I believe 
that most of us wished that dark, 
rainy night, that it had l)een our fate 
to have fallen upon the field of battle, 
and received a soldier's burial. 

Those of us who had read Shaks- 
pere could have exclaimed with 
Hamlet. — 

"To be, or not to be, that is the question : 
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
And, by opposing end them — To die — to sleep. 
No more ; and by a sleep, to say we end 
The heartache, and the thousaiid natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to, — 'tis a consummation 
Devoutedly to be wished. To die, — to sleep; — 
To sleep ! perchance to dream, aye there's the 
rub; 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



26 



For in that sleep of death what dreams may 

come, 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause, there's the respect, 
That makes calamity of so long a life : 
For who would bear the whips and scorn of 

time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud miin's con- 
tumely, 
The pangs of misprized love, the laws delay. 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes. 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin? Who Avould these fardels 

bear. 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life : 
But that the drc-ad of something after death, 
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
No traveller returns, puzzled the will; 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have. 
Than fly to others that we know not of? 
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;" 

The all-wise Being has placed within 
us all, an instinctive dread of death; 
had it not been so, I fear many poor, 
miserable, hopeless, prisoners would 
have gone out of their misery by the 
suicide's route. 

Morning came and we were in 
North Carolina. We took the same 
route back as far as Augusta, Ga., 
that we had taken when on our way 
to Richmond, the autumn previous. 

We suffered extremely on the way. 
We were not allowed to get off the 
cars for any purpose whatever, except 
to change cars. The guards brought 
us water in the bucket we had pur- 
loined from Danville. They were 
not particular where they procured 
it. They supplied us from the hand- 
iest place whether it was the water 
tank at a station, or from a stagnant 
pond or ditch by the side of the R. R. 
track. 

The reader can imagine that such 
water was rank poison. The water 
in the ditches of the Carolina swamps 
was loaded with decayed vegetable 
matter; slimy snakes and filthy water 
reptiles crawled and swam in it, and 
taken all together it was not much 
better than the fetid waters of the 
Danville canal. 

Our guards, after leaving Peters- 
berg told us we were on our way to a 
new prison which had been made at 
Andersonville, Ga. They cheered us 
somewhat, by saying it was a large 



stockade, and tliat we would have 
plenty of room, wood and water, and 
more rations. Anything seemed 
better than Danville to as, and vis- 
ions of a camp with tents for shelter, 
good water, more and better food, and 
opportunity to exercise, floated through 
our minds, and we thought that our 
situation would be more tolerable. 

From Augusta we went to Macon, 
thence to Andersonville, where we 
arrived on the 22d of April 1864. 

Andersonville is in Sumter county. 
Georgia, sixty-four miles southwest of 
Macon, on the Macon & Albany Rail- 
road. The country through all that 
region is a sandy barren, interspersed 
with swamps wiiich were filled with 
rank growths of timber, vines and 
semi-tropical shrubbery. 

They were the home of serpents, 
and reptiles of all kinds indigenous 
to that latitude, and of many kinds of 
wild animals The land was rolling 
but could not be called hilly. 

The timber was mostly southern, 
or pitch pine, with the different var- 
ieties of gum. In the swamps, cypress 
abounded, from the branches of 
which the grey, or Spanish moss 
hung like the beard of a Brobdignag- 
ian giant, through which the wind 
sighed and soughed most dismally. 

My impression, received at the time 
I was in prison, was, that it was the 
most God-forsaken country I ever 
beheld, with the exception of the 
rice swamps of South Carolina. South 
Carolina however, had a history rim- 
ning back to Revolutionary times, 
while that portion of Georgia had no 
history, but has acquired one which 
will last as long as the history of the 
Spanish Inquisition. And yet at this 
time. Southern Georgia is redeemed 
somewhat, by being the location of 
Thomasville, the winter resort of 
some of our citizens. 

The Prison Pen, or Stockade, was 
located about three-fourths of a mile 
east of the station,on the opposing face 
of two slight hills, with a sluggish 
swampy, stream running through it 
from west to east and dividing the 
prison into two unequal parts, the 
the northern, being the larger part. 



FIFTEEN MONTHS iN DIXIE 



27 



The Stockade was in the form of a 
parallelogram, being longest from 
north to south. I estimated that it 
was fifty rods east and west, by sixty 
rods north and south and that it con- 
tained eighteen acres, but from this 
must be subtracted the land lying 
between the Deadline and Stockade, 
and the swamp land lying each side of 
the little stream, known to us as 
"Deadrun," leaving, according to my 
estimate, twelve acres available for 
the use of the prisoners. 

The author of "Andersonville" 
gives the area of the prison as six- 
teen acres and the amount available 
for prisoners twelve acres. 

Dr. Jcmes, in his report, gives the 
area as seventeen acres, but does not 
intimate that part of it was not avail- 
able, so that his estimate of the 
number of square feet to each pris- 
oner, is nearly one-third too high. 

The Stockade was built of hewn 
timbers, twenty-four feet in length, 
set in the ground side by side, to a 
depth of six feet, leaving the walls of 
the Stockade eighteen feet high. The 
guards stood upon covered platforms 
or "pigeon roosts'" outside of, and 
overlooking the Stockade. 

Not far from the northwest, and 
southwest corners, on the west side, 
were the north and south gates. 
These were made double, by building 
a small stockade outside of each gate, 
which was entered by another gate, 
so that when prisoners or wagons en- 
tered the stockade they Avere first ad- 
mitted to small stockade, then the 
gate was closed, after which they were 
admitted to the main stockade. 

These small stockades were ante- 
rooms to the main prison, and were for 
the purpose of preventing a rush by 
the prisoners. 

Outside of the main stockade the 
rebels built another stockade, at a 
distance of about ten rods. Tliis was 
for the double purpose of preventing 
a "break" of the prisoners and to pre- 
vent tunnelling. 

This second stockade was built of 
round timbers set in the ground six 
feet and stood twelve feet above the 
around. 



Outside of this second stockade a 
third one was started, but was not 
completed when I left. This was for 
protection against "Uncle Billy Sher- 
man's Bummers." 

Commanding each corner of the 
stockade was a fort, built a sufficient 
distance to give the guns a good 
range. These four forts mounted all 
told eighteen guns of light artillery, 
as I was informed, and had a general 
rush been made, they would have 
slaughtered us as though we were a 
flock of pigeons. 

The cook-house was built on low 
ground on the border of a small 
stream which ran through the stock- 
ade, and west from it. 

The guards camp was west and 
southwest, from the southern portion 
uf the stockade. 

West from the south gate Gen. 
AVinder had his head-quarters, also 
the guard house and Wirz' quarters. 

About a quarter of a mile north of 
the stockade was the cemetery, then 
a sandy l)arren, with occasional jack 
pine growing. 

I have now given the reader a gen- 
eral description of the Prison Pen, or 
Stockade, of Andersonville, as seen 
from the outside. 

I will now attempt to give a view 
of the inside, as seen during five 
montlis confinement. 

Upon our arrival at Andersonville 
on the 22d of April, we were halted at 
Gen. AVinder's quarters and regis- 
tered by name, rank, company, and 
regiment. I will give the reader the 
the form as written, in the case of 
one of my tent mates who died at 
Cliarleston, S. C. the following Oc- 
tober. 

George W. Rouse, Co. D. 10th Wiscon- 
sin Inf —16-3. 

Whicli meant that lie was assigned 
to the 3d company and 16 detachment. 

Wirz had originated a very clumsy 
and unmilitary organization of the 
prisoners. He had organized them 
into companies of ninety men and as- 
signed three companies to a detach- 
inent. At the head of these compan- 
ies and detacliments was a sergeant. 
For convenience in dividing rations. 



28 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



we subivided these companies into 
squads, or messes, each mess electing 
their own sergeant. As at Richmond 
and Danville I was elected sergeant 
of my mess at Andersonville. 

We were marched into the north 
gate and assigned grounds on the east 
side of the prison, next to the Dead- 
line, and near the swamp on the 
north side. 

We were not subjected to the 
searching process at Winder's head- 
quarters, as most of the prisoners 
were. I suppose we were not a 
promising looking crowd. Had we 
been searched, the rebs would hiive 
found nothing but rags and gray- 
backs. 

Thus we were turned into the Prison 
Pen of Andersonville, like a herd of 
swine, with the chance to "root hog 
or die." No shelter was furnished 
us; no cooking utensils provided; no 
wood, nothing but a strip of barren 
yellow sand, under a hot sun. 

The situation did not look inviting. 
Our dream was not realized. Y/e had 
fresh air it is true, for the air had not 
become contaminated then. We had 
room for exercise,for 5,000 men do not 
look very much crowded on twelve 
acres,it takes 33,000 men to cover that 
amount of space in good shape ac- 
cording to the views of Winder and 
Wirz; but somehow it did not seem 
homelike. There was a wonderful 
paucity of the conveniencies, the 
necessities, to say nothing of the lux- 
uries of life. 

About 4,000 men had been sent here 
during the months of February and 
March, from Libby and Belle Isle, 
and 1,000 from Danville, about two 
weeks before us. First come, first 
served, was the rule here. The first 
settlers who "sqiuitted" in Anderson- 
ville found plenty of wood and brush 
and with these had, with true Yankee 
ingenuity and industry, constructed 
very fair houses, or hovels rather. 
But they had used up all the building 
material, had not left a brush large 
enough for a riding whip, they had 
left us nothing but sand and a mis- 
erable poor article of that. 
But the gods were propitious, and 



the next day we had the privilege of 
going out under guard, and picking up 
material for a house. Rouse and my- 
self brought in material enough to fix 
us up in good shape. We secured a 
number of green poles aV»out an inch 
thick, some of these we bent like the 
hoops of a wagon cover, sticking the 
ends in the ground. Then we fast- 
ened other poles transversely on them 
fastening them with strips of bark. 
We used a U. S. blanket for a roof or 
cover. The sides we thatched with 
branches of the long leaved pitch pine 
In a few hours we had a very fair 
shelter. 

I think the settlers in western Min- 
nesota and Dakota must be in- 
debted to Andersonville prisoners for 
the idea of "dugouts."' When we 
arrived here, we foimd many of the 
unfortunate prisoners from Belle Isle 
who had no "pup tent" or blanket to 
spare, had provided themselves warm 
quarters by burrowing into the 
ground. They had dug holes about 
the size of the head of a barrel at the 
surface of the ground and gradually 
enlarged as they dug down, until they 
were something the shape of the in- 
side of a large bell. These dugouts 
were four or five feet deep and usually 
had two occupants. These gophers 
were hard looking specimens of hu- 
manity. They had built fires in their 
holes, out of yutch pine; over this they 
had done their cooking, and over this 
they had crooned during the cold 
storms of March; they had had some 
bacon, but no soap, and the mixture 
of lamp black from the pine, and 
grease from the bacon, had disfigured 
them beyond the recognition of their 
own mothers. Their hair was long 
and unkempt, and filled with lamp 
black until it was so stiff that it stuck 
out like "quills of the fretful porcu- 
pine." Their clothes were in rags, yes 
in tatters. They were shoeless, hat- 
less, and usually coatless. They 
looked more like the terrible fancies 
of Gustave Dore than like human 
beings. And yet these poor boys 
were originally fair-haired, fair- 
skinned, blue-eyed, loyal, brave sons 
of fathers and mothers who were in 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



20 



easy circumstances, and in many for husband and papa, to come home, 

cases wealthy; who would have shed Alas ! those fathers and mothers, 

their hearts' last drop of blood, for those wives and children are waiting 

that poor boy. if it would have been yet, yea and shall wait until the sea, 

of any avail. Or they were husbands and the graves at Andersonvi lie, give 

to fair women, and fathers to sweet ^^P their dead, 
blue-eyed children, who were waiting 



CHAPTER VIL 



WINDER AND WIRZ. 

"Lady Anne. Foul devil, forGod'ssake hence, 

and trouble us not ; 
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell, 
Filled it with cursing cries, and deep exclaims. 
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds. 
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries." 

— King Richard, III. Shakspere. 

The man wlio had charge of the 
prison at Andersouville. and \v\\o was 
responsible for the barbarities ])rac- 
ticed there, more than any other man, 
was Gen. John H. Winder. 

I had not the h()ni)r(0 of a personal 
acquaintance with tliiit tiend in liumau 
shape, but Comrade John McElroy of 
tlie 16 Illinois Cavalry, the author of 
••Andersonville," gives his readers a 
description of the man. 1 quote from 
that work. 

"There rode in among us, a few 
days after our arrival, an old man 
whose collar bore the wreathed stars 
of a Major (xeneral. Heavy white 
locks fell from lieneath his slouched 
hat. nearly to shoulders. Sunken gray 
eyes too dull and cold to light up, 
marked a hard, stony face, the salient 
features of which was a thin lipped, 
compressed mouth, with corners 
flrawn down deeply — the mouth which 
seems the world over to be the index 
of selfish, cruel, sulky malignance. It 
is such a mouth as has the school boy 
— the coward of the play ground, who 
delights in pulling off the wings of 
flies. It is such a mouth as we can 
imagine some remorseless inquisitor 
to have had — that is, not an inquisi- 
tor filled with holy zeal for what he 



mistakenly thought the cause bt 
Christ demanded, but a spleeny, en- 
vious, rancorous shaveling, who tor- 
tured men from hatred of their sup- 
eriority to him, and sheer love of in- 
rtictiiig pain. 

TIk' dder was John H. Winder, 
Couiuiissary General of Prisoners, 
Baltimorean renegade and the ma- 
lign genius to whose account should 
be charged the deaths of more gallant 
men than the inquisitois of the world 
ever slew by the less dreadful rack 
and wheel. It was he who in Aug- 
ust could point to three thousand and 
eighty-one new made graves for that 
month, and exultingly tell his hearer 
that he was "doing more for the 
Confederacy than twenty regiments." 

His lineage was in accordance with 
his character. His father was that 
General William H. Winder, w^hose 
poltroonery at Bladensburg, in 1814 
nullified the resistance of the gallant 
Commodore Barney, and gave Wash- 
ington to the British. 

The father was a coward and in- 
competent; the son, always cautiously 
distant from the scene of hostilities, 
was the tormentor of those whom 
fortunes of war and the arms of 
brave men threw into his hands." 

Of his personal appearance I have 
no recollection, but the above is a true 
picture of his character. He filled a 
place in the Confederacy which no 
brave officer of equal rank would have 
accepted. Hill, Longstreet, Early, 
Polk, Hardee, even Forrest and Mos- 
by would have spurned with con- 



30 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



tempt an offer of assignment to the 
position occupied by the cowardly 
John H. Winder. 

Of Captain Henry Wirz I can write 
of my own knowledge. In personal 
appearance he was about five feet 
nine or ten inches in height, slightly 
built with stooping shoulders. He 
had a small peaked head, small twink- 
ling eyes, grisly, frowsy whiskers, and 
the general contour of his features 
and expression of eyes reminded one 
of a rodent. 

In character he was pusillanimous, 
vindictive, mean and irritable to 
those beneath him, or who had the 
misfortune to be in his power; while 
to his superiors he was humble and 
cringing, an Uriah Heep; a person who 
would "Crook the pregnant hinges of 
his knee, that thrift might follow 
fawning." 

As a specimen of the contemptible 
meanness of these two persons, I was 
told by a prisoner who attempted to 
escape, but was recaptured and put in 
the stocks, that while at their head- 
quarters he saw a large dry-goods box 
nearly full of letters written by pris- 
oners to their friends; and by friends 
to them, which had accumulated, and 
which they had neglected to f(n-ward 
or distribute. The paper upon which 
some of these letters was written, 
and the envelope in which it was en- 
closed had cost the prisoner, perhaps, 
his last cent of money, or mouthful 
of food. The failure to receive those 
letters had deprived mauy a mother 
or wife of the last chance to hear from 
a loved one, or a prisoner of his last 
chance to hear from those he loved 
more than life itself. 

Wirz was Commandant of the in- 
ner prison and in this capacity, had 
charge of calling the roll, organiza- 
tion of prisoners, issuing rations, the 
sanitary condition of the prison, the 
punishment of prisoners; in fact the 
complete control of the inner prison. 

Winder had control of all the guards, 
could control the amount of rations to 
be issued, make the rules and regula- 
tions of the prison, and had, in fact, 
complete control of the whole econo- 
my of the prison; all men and officers 



connected therewith being subordin- 
ate to him. 

Wirz' favorite punishment for in- 
fringement of prison rules, was the 
chain-gang, and stocks. Sometimes 
twelve or fifteen men were fastened 
together by shackles attached to a 
loug chain. These uufortunate men 
were left to broil in a semi-tropical 
sun, or left to shiver in the dews and 
pelting rains, without shelter as long 
as Wirz' caprice or malignity lasted. 
The stocks were usually for punish- 
ment of the more flagrant offenses, or 
when Wirz was in his worst humor. 

Just below my tent, two members 
of a New York regiment put up a 
little shelter. They always lay in 
their tent during the day, but at night 
one might see a few men marching 
away from their "shack" carrying 
haversacks full of dirt, and emptying 
them along the edge of the swamp. 
One morning the tent was gone, and 
a hole in the groimd marked the spot, 
and told the tale of their route, which 
was underground through a tunnel. 
About 8 o'clock in the morning Wirz 
came in accomijanied by a squad of 
soldiers, and a gang of negroes armed 
with shovels, who began to dig up the 
tunnel. I went to Wirz and asked 
him what was up. He was always 
ready to "blow" when he thought he 
could scare anybody, so he replied, 
"By Cott, tem tamned Yanks has got 
oudt alrety, but nefer mints, I prings 
tem pack all derights; I haf sent te 
ploothounts after dt-m. I tell you 
vat I does, I gifs any Yank swoluf 
hours de shtart, undt oaf he gits avay, 
all deright; put oaf I catches him I 
gif him hell." Some one offered to take 
the chances. "Allderights."' said he, 
"you come to de nort cate in der 
niornick undt I lets you co." 

The next day we heard that the 
blood-hounds had found the trail of the 
escaped prisoners, but that all but one 
had been foiled by cayenne pepper, 
and that one, was found dead with a 
bullet hole in his head. We never 
heard from our New York friends and 
infer that that they got to "God's 
Country." 

Many attempts were made to tunnel 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



31 



out that summer, but so far as I know 
that was the only successful one. All 
sorts of ways were resorted to, the 
favorite way being to start a well and 
dig down ten or twelve feet, then 
start a tunnel in it near the surface of 
the ground. By this means the fresh 
dirt would be accounted for, as well 
digging was within the limits of the 
prison rules. But before the "gopher- 
hole," as the tunnels were called by 
the western boys, was far advanced, a 
gang of negroes appeared upon the 
scene and dug it up. We always 
believed there were spies among us. 
Some thought the spies were some of 
our own men who were playing traitor 
to curry favor with Wirz. Others 
believed Wirz kept rebel spies among 
us. I incline to the former opinion. 
Among those who were suspected 
was a one-legged soldier named Hub- 
bard. He hailed from Chicago and 
was a perfect pest. He was quarrel- 
some and impudent and would say 
things that a sound man would have 
got a broken head for saying. His 
squawking querulous tones, and 
hooked nose secured for him the 
name of "Poll Parrott " He was a 
sort of privileged character, being 
allowed to go outside, which caused 
many to believe he was in league 
with Wirz, though I believe there 
was no direct proof of it. One day 
he came to where I was cooking my 
grub and wanted me to take him in. 
He said all his comrades were down on 
him and called him a spy, and he 
could not stand it with them. As a 
further inducement he said he could 
go out when he had a mind, and get 
wood and extra rations, which he 
would divide with me. I consulted 
my '"pard" and we agreed to take him 
in. He then asked me to cook him 
sonie dinner, and gave me his frying- 
pan and some meat. While I was 
cooking his dinner he commenced 
finding fault with me, upon which I 
suggested that he had better do his 
own cooking. He then showered 
upon my devoted head some of the 
choicest epithets found in the Bil- 
lingsgate dialect, he raved and swore 



like a mad-man. I was pretty good 
natured naturally, and besides I pitied 
the poor unfortunate fellow, but this 
presuming on my good nature a little 
too much, I fired his frying-pan at his 
head and told him to "get"; and he 
"got." 

Two days afterwards he went under 
the Dead-line and began to abuse the 
guard, a member of an Alabama reg- 
iment, who ordered him to go back, 
or he would shoot him. "Poll" then 
opened on the guard in about the 
same style as he had on me, winding 
up by dariug the guard to fire. This 
was too much and the guard fired a 
plunging sliot, the ball striking him 
in the chin and passing down into his 
body, killing him instantly. 

A few days before this, a "fresh 
fish," or "tender foot," as the cow 
boys would call him nowadays, started 
to cross the swamp south of my tent. 
In one place in the softest part of the 
swamp the railing which composed 
the Dead-line was gone, this man 
stepped over where the line should 
have been, and the guard fired at him 
but he fired too high and missed his 
mark, but the bullet struck an Ohio 
man who was sitting in front of a 
tent near mine. He was badly, but 
uot fatally wounded, but died in a few 
days from the effects of gangrene in 
liis wound. 

The author of "Andersonville" 
makes a wide distinction between the 
members of the 29th Alabama and 
the 55th Georgia regiments, which 
guarded us. in relation to treat- 
ment of prisoners, claiming that Al- 
abama troops were more humane than 
the Georgia "crackers." This was 
undoubtedly true in this instance, but 
I am of the opinion that state lineS' 
bad nothing to do with the matter. 

The 29th Alabama was an old reg- 
iment and had been to the front and 
seen war, had fired at Yankees, and 
had been fired at by Yankees in 
return; they had no need to shoot de- 
fenseless prisoners in order to estab- 
lish the enviiablie reputation of having: 
killed a "damnecl Yank;" while the' 
55th Georgia was a i>©w iregdimient. or' 
at least one which had not faeetcll tte< 



32 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



music of bullets and shells on the JBeld 
of battle, they had a reputation to 
make yet, and they made one as 
guards at Andersonville, but the devil 
himself would not be proud of it, 
while the 5th Georgia Home Guards, 
another regiment of guards, was 
worse than the 55th. 

In making up the 5th Geo. H. G. 
the officers had "robbed the cradle 
and the grave," as one of my com- 
rades facetiously remarked. 

Old men with long white locks and 
beards, with palsied, trembling limbs, 
vied with boys, who could not look 
into the muzzles of their guns when 
they stood on the ground, who were 
just out of the sugar pap and swad- 
dling clothes period of their existence, 
in killing a Yank. It was currently 
reported that they received a thirty 
days furlough for every prisoner they 
shot; besides the di sting uished'honah.' 

In marked contrast with these two 
Georgia regiments was the 5th Geor- 
ia regulars. This regiment guarded us 
at Charleston, S. C, the following 
September, and during oiir three 
weeks stay at that place I have no 
recollection of the guards firing on us, 
although we were camped in an open 
field with nothing to prevent our es- 
cape but sickness, starvation, and a 
thin line of guards of the 5th Ga. 
regulars. But this regiment too had 
seen service at the front. They had 
been on the Perryville Campaign, had 
stood opposed to my regiment at the 
battle of Perryville and had received 
the concentrated volleys of Simon- 
son's battery and the 10th Wisconsin 
Infantry, and in return had placed 
146 of my comrades hors de combat. 
They had fought at Murfresboro and 
Chickamauga, at Lookout and Mis- 



sionary Ridge and had seen grim vis- 
aged war in front of Sherman's stead- 
ily advancing columns in the Atlanta 
campaign. Surely they had secured 
a record without needlessly shooting 
helpless prisoners. 

I believe all ex-prisoners will agree 
with me, that fighting regiments 
furnished humane guards. 

For the purpose of tracking escaped 
prisoners, an aggregate of seventy 
blood-hounds were kept at Anderson- 
ville. They were run in packs of five 
or six, unless a number of prisoners 
had escaped, in which case a larger 
number were used. They were in 
charge of a genuine "nigger driver" 
whose delight it was to follow their 
loud baying, as they tracked fugitive 
negroes, or escaped Yanks through 
the forests and swamps of southern 
Georgia. 

These blood-hounds were trained to 
track human beings, and with their 
keen scent they held to the track as 
steadily, relentlessly as death itself; 
and woe betide the fugitive when 
overtaken, they tore and lacerated 
him with the blood-thirsty fierceness 
of a Numidian lion. 

These willing beasts and more will- 
ing guards were efficient factors in 
the hands of Winder and Wirz in 
keeping in subjection the prisoners 
entrusted to their care. But these 
are outside forces. Within the wooden 
walls of that prison were more subtile 
and enervating forces at work than 
Georgia militia or fierce blood-hound. 

Diarrhea, scurvy and its concomi- 
tant, gangrene,the result of insufficient 
and unsuitable food and the crowded 
and filthy state of the prison, were 
doing their deadly work, swiftly, 
surely and relentlessly. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



"Ghost. I could a tale unfold, whose lightest 

word 
Would harrow up thy soul ; freeze thy young 

blood ; 
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start f -om their 

spheres; 
Thy knotted and combined locks to part, 
And each particular hair to stand on end. 
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine." 

— Hamlet. 

The cook-house, which I have al- 
ready spoken of, had a capacity for 
cooking rations for 10.000 men. Our 
rations consisted, during the latter 
part of April and through May, of 
about a pound of corn liread, of about 
the same qualiity as tluit at Danville, 
a piece of meat about the size of two 
lingers, and a little salt per day. This 
was varied by issuing rice or cow- 
peas in the place of ineat, but meat 
and rice, or peas, were never issued 
together. We had no more hug soup, 
nor soup of any kind from the cook- 
house. We got our bugs in the peas, so 
that we were not entirely destitute of 
meat wlien we liad peas. The rice 
was filled with weevil, so that that 
too, was stronger, if not more nutri- 
tious. But wiien our numl>ers were 
increased by the prisoners who hiul 
been captured at Dalton. Resaca, 
Alatoona.New Hope Church and Ken- 
esaw. from Sherman's army, and 
from the Wilderness, from Mead's 
army, our numbers had far outgrown 
the capacity of the cook-house and 
our rations were issued to us raw. 

Then commenced real, downright 
misery and suffering. These men 
were turned into tlie prison after being 
robbed of everything of value, with- 
out shelter, without cooking utensils, 
without wood, except in the most 
meager quantities, and in most cases 
without blankets. 

Raw meal, raw rice and peas, and 
no dish to cook them in, and no wood 
to cook them with, and yet there 



were thousands of acres of timber in 
sight of the prison, and these men 
would have been too glad to cut their 
own wood and bring it into the prison 
on their shoulders. But this would 
have been a luxury, and Winder did 
not furnish prisoners with luxuries. 
There was an abortive attempt made 
at cooking more rations, by cooking 
them less, and the result was, meal 
simply scalded and called "mush," 
and rice not half cooked, and burned 
black wherever it touched the kettle 
it was boiled in. 

The effects of this unwholesome, 
half cooked, and in thousands of cases 
raw diet, was an increase of diarrhea, 
and dysentery,aiul scurvy. 
In thousands of cases of scurvy where 
scorbutic ulcers had broken out. gan- 
grene supervened and the poor prison- 
er soon found sutcease of pain, and 
misery, and starvation, in the grave. 
Auiputation of a limb was not a cure 
for these cases; new scorbutic ulcers 
appeared, again gangrene supervened, 
and death was the almost inevitable 
result. 

Tiie prison was filled with sick and 
dying men, indeed well men were the 
exception, and sick men the rule. 
The hospital was filled to overflowing; 
the piison itself, was a vast hospital, 
with no physicians, and no nurses. 

Thousands of men had become too 
sick and weak to go to the sinks to 
stool, and they voided their excre- 
ment in little holes dug near their 
tents. The result of this was, a prison 
covered with maggots, and the air so 
polluted witli the foul stench, that it 
created an artificial atmosphere, 
which excluded malaiia, and in a 
country peculiarly adapted to malar- 
ial diseases, there were no cases of 
Malarial. Typhus or Typhoid fevers. 

Your true Yankee is an ingenious 



34 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



fellow, and is always trying to better 
his situation. Many cooking dishes 
were manufactured by the prisoners 
out of tin cans, pieces of sheet i "on, 
or car roofing, which had been picked 
up on the road to prison, 

Knives and spoons were made from 
pieces of hoop iron, and a superannua- 
ted oyster or fruit can, was a whole 
cooking establishment, while a tin 
pail or coffee pot caused its owner to 
be looked upon as a nabob. 

Fortunately for myself I was joint 
owner with six men of my company, 
of a six quart tin pail. This we 
loaned attiuies to the more unfortn- 
nate, thus helping them somewhat in 
their misery. Besides this mine of 
wealth, I had an interest in the 
wooden bucket purloined from the 
Danville prison, and as Sergeant of 
the mess, it was in my care. To this 
bucket I owe, in a great measure, my 
life; for I used it for a bath tub dur- 
ing my confinement in Andersonville. 

Another cause of suiferiug was the 
extreme scarcity of water. When 
the Richmond and Belle Isle prisoners 
arrived in Andersonville in February 
and March, they had procured their 
water from Dead-run; but by the 
time our squad arrived this little 
stream had become so polluted that it 
was not fit for the wallowing place of 
a hog. 

Our first work after building a shel- 
ter was to procure water. We first 
du3 a hole in the edge of the swamp, 
but this sooQ became too warm and 
filthy for use, so we started a well in 
an open space in front of my tent, and 
close to the Dead-line. We found 
water at a depth of -six feet, but it 
was in quicksand and we thought our 
well was a failure; but again luck 
was on our side. One of the prison- 
ers near us, had got hold of a piece of 
board while marching from the cars 
to the prison, this he offered to give 
us in exchange for stock in our well. 

We completed the bargain, and 
with our Danville sawknife cut up 
the board in ^o water-curbing, which 
we sank into the quicksand, thus 
completing a well which furnished 
more water than any well in the 



whole prison. 

To the credit of my mess, who 
owned all the right, title and interest, 
in and to this well, I will say, we 
never turned a man away thirsty. 
After we had supplied ourselves, we 
gave all the water the well would 
furnish to the more unfortunate pris- 
o lers who lived on the hill, and who 
could procure no water elsewhere. 

After we had demonstrated the fact 
that clean water could be procured 
even in Andersonville, a perfect 
mania for well digging prevailed in 
prison; wells were started all over, 
but the most of them proved failures 
for different reasons, some were dis- 
couraged at the great depth, others 
had no boards for water-curbing, and 
their wells caved in, and were a fail- 
lu-e. There were, however, some 
wells dug on tlie hill, to a depth of 
thirty or forty feet. They furnished 
water of a good quality, but the quan- 
tity was very limited. 

The digging of these deep wells was 
proof of the ingenuity and daring of 
the prisoners. The only digging tool 
was a half canteen, procured by un- 
soldering a canteen. The dirt was 
drawn up in a haversack, or bucket, 
attached to a roi)e twisted out of r?gs. 
from the lining of coat sleeves or strips 
of shelter tents. The well diggers 
were lowered into, and drawn out of, 
the wells by means of these slight, 
rotten ropes, and yet, I never heard of 
an accident as a result of this work. 

But the wells were not capable of 
supplying one-fourth of the men with 
water. Those who had no interest in 
a well, and could not beg water from 
those who had, were compelled to go 
to Dead-run for a supply. 

A bridge crossed tliis stream on the 
west side of the prison, and here the 
water was not quite so filthy as farther 
down stream. This bridge was the 
slaughter pen of the 55th Georgians, 
and the 5th Georgia Home Guards. 

Here the prisoners would reach un- 
der the Dead-line to procure clean 
water, and the crack of a Geoi'gian's 
musket, was the prisoner's death 
knell. 

During the early part of August 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



35 



Providence furnished what Winder 
and Wirz refused to furnish. After 
a terrible rain storm, a spring broke 
out vmder the walls of the stockade 
about ten or fifteen rods north of this 
bridge. Boards were furnished, out 
of which a trough was made which 
carried the water into the prison. 
The water was of good quality, and of 
sufficient quantity to have supplied 
the prisoners, could it have been 
saved by means of a tank or reservoir. 
This was the historical "Providence 
Spring" known and worshiped by all 
ex-Andersonville prisoners. 

The same rain storm which caused 
Providence Spring to break out, 
gullied and washed out the ground 
between our well and the stockade to 
a depth of four feet, and so saturated 
the ground tliat the well caved in. 
We were a sad squad of men, as we 
gathered around the hole where our 
hopes of life were buried, for without 
pure water, we knew we could not 
survive long in Andersonville. 

Two days after the accident to our 
well, we held a legislative session, 
and resolved ourselves into a com- 
mittee of the whole, on ways and 
means to restore our treasure. No 
one could think of any way to fix up 
the well, boards were out of the ques- 
tion, stones there were none, and bar- 
rels: — we had not seen a barrel since 
we left "God's Country." As chair- 
man, ex-offlcio, of the committee, I 
proposed that we steal a board from 
the Dead-line. This was voted down 
by the committee as soon as proposed, 
the principle was all right, but the 
risk was too great; death would be the 
penalty for the act. The committee 
then rose and the session was ad- 
journed. After considering the mat- 
ter for a time, I resolved to steal a 
board from the Dead-line at any risk. 
I then proceeded to mature a plan 
which I soon put into execution. 
One of my "pards," Eouse, had a good 
silver watch, I told him to go up to 
the Dead-line in front of the first 
guard north of our tent, and show his 
watch, and talk watch trade with the 
guard. I sent Ole Gilbert, my other 
pard, to the first guard south, with 



the same instructions, but minus a 
watch. I kept my eyes on the guards 
and watched results; soon I saw that 
my plan was working. I picked up 
a stick of wood and going to a post of 
the Dead-line, where one end of a 
board was nailed, I pried off the end 
of the board, but horror ! how it 
squealed, it was fastened to a pitch 
pine post with a twelve penny nail 
and when I pried it loose, it squeaked 
like a horse fiddle at a charivari par- 
ty. I made a sudden dive for my 
tent, which was about sixteen feet 
away, and when I had got under 
cover I looked out to see the result. 
The guards were peering around to 
see what was up, their quick ears had 
caught the sound, but their dull brain 
could not account for the cause. 

After waiting until the guards had 
become again interested in the mer- 
cantile transaction under considera- 
tion, I crawled out of my tent and as 
stealthily as a panther crawled to my 
board again. This time I caught it 
at the loose end, and with one mighty 
effort 1 wrenched it from the remain- 
ing posts, dropped it on the ground, 
and again dove into my tent. 

The guards were aroused, but not 
soon enough to see what had been 
done, and I had secured a board 
twenty feet long by four inches wide, 
lumber enough to curb our well. 

Another meeting of the mess was 
held, the saw-knife was brought out, 
the board, after great labor, was 
sawed up, and our well was restored 
to its usefulness. 

This same storm, which occurred 
on the 12th of August, was the cause 
of a quite an episode in our otherwise 
dull life in prison. It was one of 
those terrible rains which occur 
sometimes in that region, and had 
the appearance of a cloud-burst. The 
rain fell in sheets, the ground in the 
prison was completely washed, and 
much good was done in the way of 
purifying this foul hole. The rapid 
rush of water down the opposing hills, 
filled the little stream, which I have 
called Dead-run, to overflowing, 
and as there was not sufficient outlet 
through the stockade, for the fast 



36 



FIFTEEN" MONTHS IN DIXIE 



accumulating water, the pressure be- 
came so great that about twenty feet 
of the stockade toppled and fell over. 

Thousands of prisoners were out 
looking at the downfall of our prison 
walls and when it went over we sent 
up such a shout and hurrah that we 
made old Andersonville ring. 

But the rebel guard had witnessed 
the break as well as we. The guard 
near the creek called out, "copeler of 
the gyaad! post numbah fo'teen! 
hurry up, the stockade is goin to 
h— 1." The guards, about 3,000 in 
number, came hurrying to the scene 
and formed line of battle to prevent a 
rush of prisoners, while the cannoni- 
ers in the forts sprang to their guns. 
We saw them ram home the charges 
in their guns, then we gave anotlier 
shout, when bang went one of the 
guns from the south-western fort, and 
we heard a solid shot go shrieking 
over our heads. It began to look as 
though the Johnies were going to get 
the most fun out of this thing after 
all. Just at this time Wirz came up 
to the gap and shrieked, "co pack to 
your quarters, you tanimed Yanks, or 
I vill open de cuns of de forts on 
you." 

I needed no second invitation after 
that shot went over our heads, and I 
huriied to my quarters and laid low. 
I don't think I am naturally more 
cowardly than tlie average of men, 
but that shot made me tired. I was 
sick and weak and had no courage, 
and knew Winder and Wirz so well 
that I had i)erfect faith that they 
would be only too glad of an excuse 
to carry out the threat. 

But let us go back to the month of 
May. Soon after my arrival, there 
was marched into the prison about 
two thousand of the flnest dressed 
soldiers I ever saw. Their uniforms 
were new and of a better quality than 
we had ever seen in tlie western army. 
They wore on their heads cocked 
hats, with brass and feather accom- 
paniments. Their feet were shod 
with the best boots and shoes we had 
seen since antebellum days, their 
shirts were of the best "lady's clotli" 
variety, and the chevrons on the 



sleeves of the non-commissioned offi- 
cers coats, were showy enough for 
members of the Queen's Guards. 

Poor fellows, how I pitied them. 
The mingled look of surprise, horror, 
disgust, and sorrow that was depicted 
on their faces as they marched be- 
tween crowds of prisoners who had 
been unwilling guests of the Confed- 
eracy for, from four to nine months, 
told but too plainly how our appear- 
ance affected them. As they passed 
along the mass of ragged, ghastly, 
dirt begrimed prisoners, 1 could hear 
the remark, "My God ! have I got to 
come to this ?" "I can't live here a 
month," "I had rather die, than to 
live in such a place as this," and sim- 
ilar expressions. I say that I pitied 
them, for I knew that the sight of 
such specimens of humanity as we 
were, had completely unnerved them, 
that their blood had been chilled with 
horror at sight of us, and that they 
would never recover from the shock; 
and they never did. 

Yes they had to couie to this; many 
of them did not live a month, and not 
many of tliose two thousand tine look- 
ing men ever lived to see "God's 
Country" again. 

These were the "Plymouth Pil- 
grims." Thev were a brigade, com- 
posed of the 85th New York, the 101st 
and 103d Pennsylvania. 10th Connecti- 
cut 24th New York Battery, two 
companies of Massachusetts heavy 
artillery and a company of the 12th 
New York cavalry. 

They were the garrison of a fort 
at Plymouth, North Carolina, which 
had been compelled to surrender, on 
account of the combined attack of 
land and naval forces, on the 20th dav 
of May, 1864. 

Some of the regiments composing 
this band of Pilgrims had "veteran- 
ized" and were soon going home on a 
veteran furlough when the attack 
was made, but they came to Ander- 
sonville instead. 

Their service had been most entire- 
ly in garrisons, where they had always 
been well supplied with rations and 
clothing, and exempt from hard 
marches and exposures, and as a nat- 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



ural sequence, were not as well fitted 
to endure the hardships of prison life, 
as soldiers who had seen more active 
service. 

They were turned into the prison 
without shelter, and they did not 
seem to think they could, in any way, 
provide one; without cooking uten- 
sils, and they thought they must eat 
their food raw. They began to die 
off in a few days after their arrival, 
they seemed never to have recovered 
from their first shock. 

Coiiirade McElroy tells in "Ander- 
sonville," a pathetic story of a Penn- 
sylvanian who went crazy from tlie 
effects of confinement. He had a pic- 
ture of his wife and children and he 
used to sit hour after hour looking at 
them, and sometimes imagined he 
was with them serving them at the 
home table. He would, in his imagin- 
ation, pass food to wife and children, 
calling each by name, and urging 
them to eat more. He died in a 
mouth after his entrance. 

I observed a similar case near my 
quarters. One of this same hand 
came to our well for a drink of water 
which we gave him. He "was well 
dressed, at first, but seemed to be a 
simple-minded man. Day after day 
he came for water, sometimes 
many times a day. Soon he began to 
talk incoherently, Chen to mutter 
something about home and food. One 
day his hat was gone; the next day 
his boots were missing, and soon, day 
after day, until he was perfectly nude, 
wandering about in the hot sun, by 
day, and shivering in the cold dews 
at night, until at last we found him 
one morning lying in a ditch at the 
edge of the swamp, — dead. 

God only knows how many of those 
poor fellows were chilled in heart 
and brain, at their first introduction 
to Andersonville. 

The coming of the Pilgrims into 
prison was the beginning of a new era 
in its history. Before they came, 
there was no money among the pris- 
oners, or so little as to amount to 
nothing; but at the time of their sur- 
render they had been paid off, and 
those who had "veteranized" had 



been paid a veteran bounty, so that 
they brought a large sum of money 
into prison. 

The reader may inquire how it was 
that they were not searched, and 
their money and valuables taken from 
them by Winder and Wirz? It is a 
natural inquiry, as it was the only 
instance in the record of Anderson- 
ville, so far as I ever heard, Avhen 
such rich plunder escaped those com- 
missioned robbets. Tlie reason they 
escaped robbery of all their money, 
'clothing, blankets and good boots and 
shoes, was, they had surrendered 
with the agreement that they should 
be allowed to keep all their personal 
belongings, and in this instance the 
Confederate authorities had kept 
their agreement. 

Thus several thousand dollars were 
brought into prison, and the old pris- 
oners were eager to get a share. All 
sorts of gambling devices were used, 
tlie favorite being the old army 
Cliuc-a-luck board. When these men 
came in, the old prisoners had preem- 
ted all the vacant land adjoining their 
quarters, and they sold their right to 
it, to these tender-feet for large sums, 
for the purpose of putting up shelters 
on. This they had no right to do, 
but the Pilgrims did not know it. 

As the money liegan to circulate, 
trade began to flourish. Sutler, and 
soup stands sprung up all over the 
prison, where vegetables and soup 
were sold at rates that would seem 
exorbitant in any other place than 
the Confederacy. The result of all 
tills gambling and trading, together 
with another cause which I will men- 
tion, was, that the Pilgrims were 
soon relieved of all their money, and 
then began to trade their clothing. 
Thus these well supplied, well dressed 
prisoners were soon reduced to a level 
with the older prisoners; but there 
was a compensation in this, as well 
as in nature, for what the former lost 
the latter gained and they were the 
better off by that much. 

The supplies of vegetables and food 
which were sold by the sutlers and 
restaurateurs, were procured of the 
guards at the gate, they purchasing 



38 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IX DIXIE. 



of the "Crackers" in the vicinity, only in prison, but with the surround- 
causing a lively trade to flourish, not ing country. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE EAIDERS. 

"There must be government in all society — ' 
Bees have their Queen, and stag herds have 

their leader ; 
Rome had her Consuls, Athens had her Ar- 

chons, 
And we, sir, have our Managing Committee." 

In the southern portion of the 
prison, bordering the swamp, there 
was domiciled the worst specimens 
of humanity I ever knew. An ac- 
quaintance with them would almost 
convince any thinking man that there 
was something in Darwin's theory of 
the developement of species. If that 
theory is tenable, then I should argue 
these men had been developed from 
hyenas, and not very far, or well de- 
veloped either. They wore the out- 
ward semblance of men, but retained 
the cowardly, blood-thirsty, sneaking, 
thievish nature of the hyena. These 
were the Andersouville "Raiders;" 
and a worse set of men never lived, 
— in America, at least. 

These men were from the slums of 
New York City and Brooklyn. I 
never knew what their record as sol- 
diers was, but as prisoners they 
were the terror of all decent men. 
They congregated together, were or- 
ganized into semi-military organiza- 
tion, had their officers from captains 
down, and in squads made their raids 
upon the peaceable prisoners, who 
were possessed of anything which ex- 
cited their cupidity. 

The Plymouth Pilgrims furnished 
a rich harvest for these miscreants, 
who spotted them, marking their 
sleeping places, and in tlie dead hour 
of the night robbed them of what- 
ever they possessed; or if any of the 
Pilgrims ventured into their haunts 
by day, they were knocked down and 



robbed by daylight. 

While the raiders were constantly 
at war with others, they were not 
always at peace among themselves. 
Their favorite weapon with others 
was a stick; but they settled their 
difficulties of a domestic character 
with their fists. 

Sometimes one of the small fry 
among these Raiders, would venture 
out on his own' hook, and pilfer any 
little article he could find in a sick 
man's tent. One day a member of 
my mess caught one of these fellows 
stealing a tin cup from a sick man; 
he immediately gave chase and 
caught him, then we held a drum- 
head court martial and sentenced him 
to have his head shaved. 

Now I do not suppose there was a 
razor among the thirty-three thous- 
and men that were in Andersouville 
at the time; notwithstanding this 
drawback, the sentence of the court 
was carried out Avith a pocket knife. 
It made the fellow scowl some, but 
the executioner managed to saw his 
hair off after a fashion. 

Another of these Raiders got his 
just punishment while trying to rob 
a half-breed Indian, a member of the 
Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. The 
raider attempted to steal the Indian's 
boots from under his head, when the 
descendant of King Phillip plunged a 
knife into the hoodlum, killing him 
dead on the spot. 

A number of murders had been 
committed by these Raiders, and rob- 
beries innumerable, when matters were 
brought to a focus one day in the 
early part of July, by Lieiitenant 
Davis, then in command of the Prison 
vice Wirz who was sick, declaring 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



39 



that no more rations would be issued 
until these men were given up. 

He had no need to threaten us; — 
we were willing to give them up; — we 
had no earthly use for them. Give 
them up 1 yes; and pay boot, to get rid 
of them. But it required a man 
of nerve to lead in the ai'rest of 
these desperadoes. It was no child's 
play, as there were between four and 
five hundred of them, and to arrest 
the leaders meant '"business." That 
man was found in the person of Ser- 
geant Leroy L. Key, of the 16th Illi- 
nois Cavalry, who was ably seconded 
by a tall, lithe, young fellow known 
as "Limber Jim,*" a member of the 
67th Illinois. 

To the efforts of these two men, the 
prisoners at Andersonville were in- 
debted, more than any other men, for 
the comparative peace and security of 
the prison after the 11th of July. 

Key was the head, and furnished 
the bi'ains.of the organization known, 
at first, as the "Regulators," after- 
ward as the "Prison Police," Limber 
Jim was second in command, and first 
in a fight. 

These two men organized a force of 
men in the southwest corner of the 
stockade, from the best material 
which could be found. It needed 
strong brave men for the work in 
hand; for these Raiders were strong, 
athletic men, and desperate charac- 
ters, and the Regulators must need 
face the lion in his den. 

On the 3d of July Key at the head 
of the Regulators, armed with clulis, 
made a charge on the Raiders, who 
had been expecting the attack and 
were prepared. I was standing on 
the north side of the swamp, and was 
in good position to see the fight. 

Key, followed by Limber Jim, led 
the charge; for a few minutes the 
spectators could tell nothing of how 
the Regulators were faring. The air 
was filled with clubs, which were des- 
cending on men's heads, shoulders 
and arms. The fighting mass surged. 
and swayed, and finally the Raiders 
broke and ran; and then the specta- 
tors set up such a shout as must have 
cheered Key and his brave men. 



That day and the next, the Regula- 
tors arrested one hundred and twenty- 
five of the worst characters among the 
Raiders. Davis gave Key the use of 
the small stockade at the north gate, 
as a prison in which to hold them for 
trial. 

He then organized a Court Martial, 
consisting of thirteen sergeants, se- 
lected from among the latest arrivals, 
in order to guard against bias. The 
trial was conducted as fairly as was 
possible, considering their ignorance 
of law. Technicalities counted for 
naught, facts, well attested, influenced 
that court. 

The trial resulted in finding six men 
guilty of murder; and the sentence 
was hanging. 

The names of tli'e six condemned 
men were, John Sarsfleld, William 
Collins, alias '-Mosby," Charles Cur- 
tis, Patrick Delaney, A. Muir and 
Terrence Sullivan. 

These men were heavily ironed, 
and closely guarded, while the re- 
maining one hundred and nineteen 
were returned to the prison, and com- 
pelled to run a gauntlet of men armed 
with clubs and fists, who belabored 
them unmercifully, as they were 
passed through one by one. 

The sentence of the court martial 
was executed on these six men on the 
11th of July. A gallows was erected 
in the street leading from the south 
gate, and the culprits marched in 
under a Confederate guard, to a hol- 
low square which surrounded the 
scaffold, and was formed by Key's 
brave Regulators, where they were 
turned over to Limber Jim. 

These desperadoes were terribly 
surprised when they found they were 
to be hung. They imagined the court 
martial was a farce, intended to scare 
them. Imagine their disappointment 
when they were marched to the gal- 
lows, and turned over to the cool, but 
resolute and firm Key, and the fiery 
Limber Jim, whose brother had been 
murdered by one of the number. 
They found that it was no farce but 
real genuine tragedy, in which they 
were to act an important part. 

When they realized this, they began 



40 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



to beg for mercy, but they had shown 
no mercy, and now they were to re- 
ceive no mercy. They then called 
upon the priest, who attended them, 
to speak in their behalf; but the pris- 
oners would have none of it, but 
called out "hang them." 

When they found there was no 
mercy in that crowd of men whom 
they had maltreated and robbed, and 
whose comrades and friends they had 
murdered, they resigned themselves 
to their fate; all but Curtis who broke 
from the guard of Regulators and ran 
through the crowd, over tents, and 
across Dead-run into the swamp 
where he was recaptured and taken 
back. 

They were then placed upon the 
platform, their arms pinioned, meal 
sacks were tied over their heads, the 
ropes adjusted around their necks, 
and, at a signal given by Key, the 
trap was sprung and they were 
launched into eternity, all but 
Mosby, who being a heavy man broke 
his rope. He begged for his life, but 
it was of no avail. Limber Jim 
caught him around the waist and 
passed him up to another man; again 
the noose was adjusted and he. too, 
X'eceived his reward for evil doing. 

The execution of these men whs 
witnessed by all the prisoners who 
were able to get out of their tents, 
and it is needless to add, was ap- 
proved by them, all except the Raid- 
ers. Besides the prisoners, all the 
rebels who were on duty outside, 
found a position where they could 
witness the scene. The Confederate 
officers, apprehensive of a stampede 
of the prisoners, took the precaution 
to keep their men under arms, and 
the guns in the forts were loaded, the 
fuses inserted in the vents and No. 4 
stood with lanyard in hand ready to 
suppress an outbreak. 

The hanging of these men had a 
very salutaiy effect upon the other 
evil doers in the prison. 

Heretofore we had had no organiza- 
tion; we were a mob of thirty-three 
thousand men, without law,and with- 
out officers. Each mess had its own 
laws and each man punished those 



who had offended him; that is, if he 
could. But now this band of thugs 
was broken up and their leaders 
hanged. The Regulators were turned 
into a police force, with the gallant 
Limber Jim as chief, and henceforth 
order prevailed among the prisoners 
at Andersonville. 

The reader will readily see, from 
reading what I have written in this 
chapter, that our sufferings did not all 
proceed from the rebels. 

Almost twenty-five years have 
elapsed since those scenes were en- 
acted, the hot passion engendered by 
the cruelties of prison life, have 
measurably cooled, and as I am writ- 
ing this story, I am determined to 
"hew to the line let the chips fall 
where they will," and with a full un- 
derstauding of what I say, I affirm 
that many of the prisoners suffered 
more cruelly, at the hands of their 
comrades, than they did from the 
rebels themselves. 

There was among the Pilgrims, a 
fiend by the name of McClellan, a 
member of the 12th New York cav- 
alry, wlio kicked, and abused, and 
maltreated the poor weak prisoners 
who got in his way in a manner which 
deserved the punishment meted out 
to the six Raiders. He had charge 
of delivering the rations inside of the 
prison, and if some poor starved boy. 
looking for a crumb got in his way he 
would lift him clear oft' from the 
ground with the toe of his huge boot. 

One day while the bread wagon was 
unloading, I saw a boy not more than 
eighteen years old who had become 
so weak from starvation, and so crip- 
pled by scurvy that he could not walk, 
but crawled around on his hands and 
knees, trying to pick up some crumbs 
which had fallen from the bread; he 
happened to get in McCiellan's way. 
when that brute drew back his foot 
and gave the poor fellow a kick which 
sent him several feet, and with a 
monstrous oath, told him to keep out 
of his way. This was only one in- 
stance among thousands of his brutal- 
ity, yet with all his meanness I never 
heard him charged with dishonesty. 

The rebels had a way of punishing 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



41 



negroes, which was most exquisite 
torture. From my quarters in the 
prison I witnessed the punishment of 
a negro by this method one day. He 
was stripped naked and then laid on 
the ground face downward, his limbs 
extended to their full length, then his 
hands and feet were tied to stakes. 
A burly fellow then took a paddle 
board full of holes, and applied it to 
that part of tlie human anatomy in 
which our mothers used to appear to 
be so much interested, when they af- 
fectionately drew us across their 
knee, and pulled off their slipper. 

The executioner was an artist in his 
way, and he applied that paddle with 
a will born of a determination to ex- 
cel, and the way that poor darkey 
howled and yelled was enough to 
soften a heart of stone. 

This mode of punishment was 
adopted by the prison police after- 
ward, in cases of petty larceny, and 
I do not think the patient ever needed 
a second dose of that medicine, for 
there was a blister left to represent 
»every separate hole in the paddle, 
and the patient was obliged for 
several days,like the Dutchman's hen, 
to sit standing. 

I would recommend this treatment 
to the medical fraternity, as a substi- 
tute for cupping; as the cupping and 
scarifying are combined in one opera- 
tion, and I think there is no patent 
on it. 

The battle of Atlanta was fought 
on the 22d day of July, and we re- 
ceived the news of the victory in a 
few days afterward from prisoners 
who were captured on that day. Our 
hopes began to revive from this time. 
We thought we could begin to see 
the "beginning of the end." Besides 
this we had a hope that Sherman 
would send a Corps of Cavalry down 
to rescue us. The rebels seem to 
have some such thoughts running 
through their minds, as the following 
copy of an order, issued by General 
Winder, testifies. 

"Headquarters Military Prison, 
Andersonville, Ga., July 27, 1864. 

The officers on duty and in charge 
of the Battery of Florida Artillery at 



the time will, upon receiving notice 
that the enemy has approached with- 
in seven miles of this post, open upon 
the stockade with grape shot, without 
reference to the situation beyond the 
line of defense. John H. Winder. 
Brigadier General Commanding." 

This order was issued at the time 
Gen. Stoneman with his cavalry was 
trying to capture Macon. Winder, in 
his cowardice, supposed he might 
attempt to rescue the prisoners at 
Andersonville. 

This order, when interpreted, 
means that when the officers in the 
forts which guarded the prison, 
should hear that any of the Federal 
troops were approaching within seven 
miles of the prison, they were to open 
on us with grape shot. A simple 
rumor by some scared native would 
have precii)itated that catastrophe. 

Just think of it, twenty-four can- 
nons loaded with grape shot opened 
on sick defenseless men. not for any 
offense they had committed, but be- 
cause Winder would rather see us 
slaughtered than rescued. 

Further, the order says, "without 
reference to the situation beyond 
these lines of defense." This simp> 
means tliat they were .to pay no atten- 
tion to the attacking party, but to 
slaughter us. 

If the records of the Infernal Reg- 
ions could be procured, I do not be- 
lieve a more hellish order could be 
found on file. 

We heard of Stoneman's raid and 
hoped, and yet feared, that he would 
come. We knew that the foregoing 
order had been issued, and yet we 
hoped the artillerymen would not find 
time to carry it out. 

We would have liked, O so much, 
to have got hold of Winder and Wirz, 
and that Georgia Militia, there would 
have been no need of a stockade to 
hold them. 

O, how weary we became of wait- 
ing. It seemed to us that home, and 
friends, and the comforts, and neces- 
sities of life, were getting further, 
and further away, instead of nearer, 
that we could not stand this waiting, 
and sickness, and misery, and living- 



42 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IX DIXIE. 



death much longer.. 

The more we thought of these 
things, the more discouraged we be- 
came, and I believe these sad discour- 
aging thoughts helped to prostrate 
many a poor fellow, and unfit him to 
resist the effects of his situation and 
surroundings, and hastened, if it was 
not the immediate cause of death. 

Chaplain McCabe, who was a pris- 
oner in Libby Prison, has a lecture 
entitled -'The l)right side of Prison 
life." If there was a bright side to 
Andersonville, I want some particu- 
ular funny fellow, who was conJined 
there for five or six months, to come 
around and tell me where it was, for 
I never found it, until I found the 
ovTside of it. 

We heard of the fall of Atlanta, 
which occurred on the 2d of Septem- 
ber, and had we known tlie song then, 
we would have sang those cheering 
words written and composed by Lieu- 
tenant S. H. M. Byers, while confined 
in a rebel prison at Columbia, Soutli 
Carolina. 

I. 
"Our camp-fire shone bright on the mountains 
That frowned on the river below. 
While we stood by our guns in the morning 
And eagerly watched for the foe : 
When a rider came out from the darkness. 
That hung over mountain and tree, 



And shouted "boys up and be ready, 
For Sherman will march to the Sea." 

II. 
Then cheer upon cheer, for bold Sherman 
Went up from each valley and glen, 
And the bugles re-echoed the music 
That came from the lips of the men ; 
For we knew that the Stars on our banner 
More bright in their splendor would be, 
And that blessings from North-land would 

greet us 
When Sherman marched down to the sea. 

III. 
Then forward, boys, forward to battle 
We marched on our wearisome way, 
And we stormed the wild hills of Resaca 
God bless those who fell on that day : 
Then Kenesaw, dark in its glory. 
Frowned down on the flag of the free ; 
But the East and the West bore our standards, 
And Sherman marched on to the sea. 

IV. 
Still onward we pressed, till our banner 
Swept out from Atlanta's grim walls, 
And the blood of the patriot dampened 
The soil where the traitor flag falls: 
But we paused not to weep for the fallen. 
Who slept by each river and tree. 
Yet we twined them a wn^ath of the laurel 
As Sherman marched down to the sea. 

V. 
Oh, proud was our army that morning, 
That stood where the pine proudly towers, 
When Sherman said, "boys you are weary; 
This day fair Savannah is' ours !" 
Then sang we a song for our chieftain. 
That echoed o'er river and lea. 
And the stars in our banner grew brighter 
When Sherman marched down to the sea. 



CHAPTER X. 



CLOSE QUAKTERS. 

"Hamlet. I have of late lost all my mirth, 
foregone all custom of exercises ; and. indeed, 
it goes so heavily with my disposition, that 
this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a 
sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, 
the air, look you, — this brave o'er hanging 
firmament, this majestical roof fretted with 
golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to 
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of 
vapors." Shakspere. 

The great influx of prisoners dui-- 
ing the month of May and early part 
of June, from the armies of Sherman 
and Meade, increased our numbers to 
more than thirty thousand prisoners. 
These were crowded upon the small 
space of twelve acres, or more than 
two thousand five hundred men to 



the acre. This vv'ould allow thirty- 
one square feet to each man. or a 
piece of ground five feet by six feet, 
on which to build his tent and per- 
form all the acts and offices of life. 
Indeed we were crowded in so thickly 
that it was impossible for the prison 
officials to find room for us to "fall 
in" for roll call, for more than three 
weeks. 

In the latter ])art of .June, liowever, 
an addition of nine acres was built, 
which gave us more room, but did 
not remove the filth and excrements 
which had accrued in the older part 
of the prison. The building on of an 
addition to the prison was a God-send 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



43 



in two ways, it gave more room, 
and the old north line of stockade 
was cut down for fuel. The new part 
Avas tinislied one afternoon and a. gap 
made in the old stockade through 
which the prisoners passed to their 
new quarters. After dark a raid was 
made on the old part, and before 
morning every timber was down, and 
men who had been compelled to eat 
their food, at best half cooked, were 
now supplied with wood. 

The old part of the prison had be- 
come so foul, as a result of the sick- 
ness and crowded state of the prison- 
ers, that it surpassed all i)owers of 
description or of imagination. The 
whole swan»p bordering upon Dead- 
run, w;is covered to a depth of several 
inches with Juuuan excrements, and 
this was so tilled with nuiggots that 
it seemed a living moving nuiss of 
putrifying tilth. The stench was 
loathsome and sickening to a degree 
that surpasses description. With the 
crowded state of tlie prison, the tilthy 
surroundings, and the terrible atmos- 
phere which covered the prison like a 
cloud, it is no wojuler that men sick- 
ened and died by tlie thousands every 
month. 

These terrible surroundings made 
the prisoners depressed and gloomy 
in spirits, and made them more sus- 
ceptible to the attacks of disease. 

The bodies of tlu)se who died were 
carried to the soutii gate, with their 
name, company, and regiment writ- 
ten on a slip of paper und piinied to 
their breast. Here they were laid in 
the Dead-house, outside of the Stock- 
ade. Prom the Dead-house lliey were 
carted in wagons to the Cemetery, 
and buried in trenches four feet in 
depth. They were thrown into the 
wagons, like dead dogs, covered with 
filtii and lice. After tlie wagons had 
hauled away all the dead liodies, they 
were loaded with food fen- the prison- 
ers in the Stockade. This was done 
without any attempt at. or pretense 
of cleaning in any way. I shall leave 
the reader to imagine how palatable 
that food was after such treatment. 

Tlie monotony of prison life w^as 
sometimes relieved by finding among 



the prisoners an old acquaintance of 
boyhood days. Many of the western 
men were born and educated in the 
East, and it was no uncommon thing 
for them to find an old chum among 
the eastern soldiers. 

One day as I was cooking my ra- 
tions some one slapped me on the 
shoulder and exclaimed, "Hello Bill!" 
Looking up 1 saw standing before me, 
an old schoolmate from Jamestown, 
Mew York, by the name of Joe Hall. 
It was a sad re-union; we had both 
been in prison more than nine months, 
lie on Belle Isle, and I in Danville. 
We had both been vaccinated and had 
great scorbutic ulcers in our arms, 
but he, poor fellow, had gangrene 
whicii soon ate away his life. A few 
weeks afterwards he went out to the 
prison hospital, where he died in a 
few days, and now a marble slalj in 
the Cemetery at Andersonville with 
this inscription, 

Joseph Hall, Company E. 9th N. Y. Gav. 
marks the last resting place of one of 
my boyhood friends. Poor Joe. 

A few days after Joe's visit to me, 
he introduced me to another James- 
town boy, a member of the 49th New 
York Infantry, by the name of Orlan- 
do Hoover, or "Tip" as he was called. 
He had re-inlisted during the winter 
previous and had been home on a 
veterans furlough, where he had vis- 
ited some of my old friends. He told 
me how some ef the old gray haired 
men had deidared they would enlist 
for the purpose of releasing the pris- 
oners, that there was great indigna- 
tion expressed by many loyal north- 
ern men, because our government did 
not take some measures to release us 
from our long confinement. 

"Tip" had good health in Ander- 
sonville, as he did not stay there more 
than two months, but when we arriv- 
ed at Florence I went to his detach- 
ment to see him, and his "pard" told 
me that he had jumped from the cars, 
and that the guards had shot him, 
while on their way up from Charles- 
ton. A little more than two months 
afterward, I carried the news to liis 
widowed mother, and sisters. 

One of my comrades, Nelson Her- 



44 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



rick, of Company B, 10th "Wisconsin, 
had scratched his leg slightly with 
his finger nail, this had grown into a 
scorbutic ulcer, at last gangrene sup- 
ervened upon it, and one of the best 
men in the 10th Wisconsin was car- 
ried to the cemetery. 

All the terrible surroundings made 
me sad and gloomy, but did not take 
from me my determination to live. 
I knew that if I lost hope, I would 
lose life, and I was determined that I 
would not die on rebel soil — not if 
pure grit would prevent it. But one 
day in August I ate a small piece of 
raw onion which gave me a very se- 
vere attack of cholera morbus, which 
lasted me two days. I began to think 
that it was all up with me, but thanks 
to the kindness of my "pards", Kouse 
and Ole, I pulled through and from 
that day began to get better of dysen- 
tery and scurvy with which I was af- 
flicted. I was so diseased with scur- 
vy, that my nether limbs were so 
contracted that I was obliged to walk 
on my tiptoes, with the aid of a long 
cane held in both hands. My limbs 
were swollen and of a purple color. 
My gums were swollen and purple and 
my teeth loose and taken altogether I 
looked like a man who had got his 
ticket to the cemetery. None of my 
comrades believed I could live, so they 
told me afterward, but I never had a 
doubt of my final restoration to home 
and friends, except in those two days 
in which I suffered with cholera 
morbus. 

Of the comrades of my regiment 
with whom I had been associated in 
prison, Nelson Herrick, Joseph Par- 
rott, Ramey Yoht, and Wallace I)ar- 
row of company B, had died from 
the effects of diarrhea and scurvy, 
and Corporal John Doughty of my 
company had died from the effects of 
a gunshot wound, received from a 
guard at Danville, while looking out 
of a window. 

Of those names I remember at this 
date, who were in Andersonville, Joe 
Eaton of Company A, stood the pris- 
on life very well, he being one of the 
few who kept up his courage and ob- 
served, as well as possible, the laws of 



health. 

John Burk of my company, seemed 
to wear well in this terrible place, on 
accoimt of a strong constitution and 
his unflinching grit, which was of a 
quality like a Quinebaug whetstone. 
Corporal J. E. Webster, and E. T. 
Best, Sergeant Ole Gilbert, G. W. 
Rouse, and myself of my company, 
and Sergeant Roselle Hull of Compauy 
B, were alike afflicted with dysentery 
and scurvy, and each had a large scor- 
butic ulcer on his arm. Friend Cow- 
les of Company B. had also succum- 
ed to the terrible treatment of the 
rebels, and had been laid to rest. 

To add to our suffering we were 
exposed to the terrible heat of that 
semi-tropical climate. There was not 
a tree left on the ground, not a bush, 
nothing for shade, but our little tents 
and huts. The sun at noon was 
almost vertical, and he poured down 
his rays with relentless fury on our 
unprotected heads. The flies swarm- 
ed about and on i;s by day and the 
mosquitoes tormented us by night. 
There was no rest, no comfort, no en- 
joyment, and only a tiny ray of hope 
for us. 

Amid all this terrible misery and 
suffering, there were a few who kept 
their faith in God, and did not curse 
the authors of their misery. Conspic- 
uous among these was a band of 
Union Tennesseans who were quar- 
tered near me. They held their 
prayer meetings regularly, and occa- 
sionally one of their number would de- 
liver an exhortation. The faith of 
those men was of the abiding kind. 
They were modern Pauls and Silases 
praying for their jailors. I too had a 
faith, but not of the same quality as 
theirs. My faith was in a climate 
where overcoats would not be 
needed, and that our tormentors 
would eventually find it. 

We had no intercourse with the 
guards, and could get no newspapers, 
hence all the news we got was from 
the "tenderfeet" when they arrived. 
But the news we did get after Sher- 
man and Grant began the advance, 
was of a cheering kind, and we had 
strong hopes of the ultimate success 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



45 



of the Union cause. I cannot imagine 
what the result, so far as we were con- 
cerned, would have been, had Sher- 
man and Grant failed in their great 
undertakings. Without any hope to 
cheer us, we must have all been sac- 
rificed in the arms of the Moloch of 
despair. 

One day in August a squad of Union 
Tennessee Cavalry was brought in. 
We tried in vain to find out what 
Sherman was doing, and how large an 
army he had. They only knew that 
they had been captured while on pick- 
et duty, and that Sherman had a 
"powathful lahge ahmy." 

Your ordinary Southerner of those 
days, had a profound and an alnding 
ignorance of numbers. They were to 
him what pork is to a Jew, an unclean 
thing. He had no use for them, and 
would at a venture accept ten thous- 
and dollars, as a greater sum than a 
million, for the reason that it took 
more words to express the former, 
than the latter sum. 

In the winter of 1862, while Mit- 
chell's Division was camped at Bac- 
on Creek, Ky.,we had a picket post on 
a plantation owned by a man named 
Buckner, a cousin of the rebel Gener- 
al S. B. Buckner, he was, or professed 
to be, a Union man. He went down 
to Green River on one occasion to 
visit Buell's army. On his return I 
asked him how many soldiers Gener- 
al Buell had? "I can't just say," he 
replied, "but theys a powahful lot of 
em." "Yes but how many thousand?" 
said I. "Well I wont be right suah, 
Vuit theys a heap moah than a right 
smart chance of em," was as near an 
apiiroach to numbers as I could in- 
duce him to express. 

Geogra.i)hy is on the same catalogue 
with Arithmetic. While marching 
from Shepardsville to Elizabethtown, 
in ISOl we camped for the night on 
Muldraugh's Hill, near the spot where 
President Lincoln was born. After 
we had "broke ranks" I went with 
others to a farm house not far away 
to procure water. A middle aged 
man met us, and after granting us 
permission to get water from his well, 
he asked me, "what regiment is 



that?" I told him it was the 10th 
Wisconsin. "Westconstant, West- 
constant, let me see is Westconstant 
in Michigan?" inquired he. 

After the battle of Chickamauga, 
while we were at McLaw's Division 
Hospital, our Surgeon took charge of 
a rebel soldier lad not more than six- 
teen years of age, who in addition to 
a severe wound, was suffering from 
an attack of fever. One morning the 
surgeon went to him and asked, "how 
are you this morning my boy?,^ "Well 
I feel aheap bettah, but I'm powah- 
ful weak yet, doctah," was his reply. 
Notwithstanding tliese people know 
nothing of numbers, or of Geography, 
or of Orthography and not much of 
any ology, or ism, yet they are good rid- 
ers, good marksmen, good card play- 
ers, good whiskey drinkers, and bar- 
ring the troubles which grew out of 
the "late unpleasantness" and "moon- 
shining" they are in the main kind- 
hearted people to the whites. 

These remarks apply to the poorer 
class of whites in the time of the war, 
I understand there has been much 
improvement since that time, in some 
respects, there was certainly room for 
it. 

But the trusty unfailing friend of 
the Union soldier, the caterer and 
guide of the escaped prisoner, the one 
on whom he could depend under any, 
and all circumstances was the negro. 
The poor black man knew that 
"Massy Lincum's sogers" were solv- 
ing a problem for them which had re- 
mained unsolved for more than two 
hundred years. They knew that the 
success of the Union arms meant the 
freedom of the slaves, and they al- 
ways worshipped a Federal soldier. 
Any prisoner who escaped from rebel 
prisons, and succeeded in reaching 
the Union lines, owes his success to 
the negroes for without their friendly 
aid in the way of furnishing food, and 
pointing out the way, and in most in- 
stances acting as guide, they could 
never have succeeded. He was never 
so poor but that he would furnish 
food for a fugitive prisoner and the 
night was never so dark but that he 
would guide him on his way, usually 



46 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



turning him over to a friend who 
would run him to the next station on 
the "underground railroad." 

The negro was, on his part, the in- 
nocent cause of much trouble, -for 
speculate and explain as much as you 
will, he was the cause of the war. On 
his account the exchange of prisoners 
was suspended and he was, at once, 
the cause of nearly all our trouble, 
and our only friend. I said our only 
friend, I mean in a general sense, 
for there was a class of 
men, though small in numbers, who 
never forgot the men of their own 
faith. There was never a prison so 
dark and filthy but that a Catholic 
priest would enter it, and there was 
never a dying prisoner so lousy and 
besmeared, but that he would admin- 
ister the consolations of the church 
to him in the hour of liis extremity. 

In fact Catholic priests were the 
only ministers, I ever heard of, who 
entered the prison at Audersonville 
to give the consolations of their reli- 
gion to dying men. I do not wish to 
be understood as finding fault because 
this was so, for Rebel ministers would 
not and Union ministers could not, 
enter that prison. And, indeed, we 
did not want the ministrations of 
those Rebel preachers. What little ex- 
perience we had had with them had 
convinced us that they would take 
advantage of their position to insult 
us on account of our loyalty to our 
flag. Not so with the Catholic priest. 
He knew nothing of race, color, or pol- 
itics when dying men were consider- 
ed. In his zeal for his church Rebel 
and Union were alke to him, and in 
any place where a Catholic was to be 
found, there a Catholic priest would 
find his way, and offer the sacraments 
of his church to the dying. I can 
honor them for their zeal and cour- 



age, although I cannot accept the 
dogmas of their church. 

iJr. Jones, in his report, speaks of 
the inhuman treatment of the nurses 
to the sick. This may have been true 
of the nurses in the hospital. They were 
detailed from among the prisoners 
in the stockade, not on account of any 
fitness for the duty, but because of 
favor. They cared nothing for the 
sick. They were after the extra rations 
which were allowed to men who were 
working outside the stockade, and 
for the clothing which fell into their 
hands in one way and another. 

Inside of the stockade there were no 
nurses for the sick, except such vol- 
untary care as one comrade bestowed 
upon another. In cases where men 
of the same company or regiment 
were associated together the sick man 
so far as I observed, was cared for as 
well as the circumstances would ad- 
mit of. But wliat could these men 
do for each other'?- There was no 
medicine to be had for love or money. 
The surgeons prescribed sumac ber- 
ries for scurvy, and black-berry root 
for diarrhea and dysentery. Little 
luxuries, such as fruits, jellies, and 
farinaceous compounds were unknown 
in that place. A comrade could only 
cook the corn meal, and bring a dish 
of water, and assist his friend to stool 
and when he died pin a little slip of 
paper on his breast with his name, 
company and regiment written on it, 
and assist in carrying him to the 
Dead-house, and then hope that some 
one would do as well by him. 

Ye who growl, and snarl, and find 
fault with everything and everybody, 
when you do not feel well, will do 
well to stop and think how those poor 
men suffered and then thank God, and 
your friends, that your condition is, 
so much better than theirs was. 



CHAPTER XI. 



MORTALITY AT ANDERSONVILLE. 
"Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; 
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes 
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. 
Let's choose executors, and talk of wills: 
And yet not so, — for what can we bequeath, 
Save our deposed bodies to the ground *" 

King Richard II. 

The number of prist)ners confined 
in the Andersonville prison, all told, 
was forty-five thousand six hundred 
and thirteen. Of these twelve thous- 
and nine hundred and twelve died 
there, or in other words two men out 
of every seven who were confined in 
that prison died there, and the aver- 
age length of time of imprisonment 
was only four months. 

That this was largely due to causes 
within the control of the Confederate 
authorities I propose to show by the 
sworn testimony of one of their own 
men who was in a position to know, 
and speak authoritatively. 

On the Gth day of August 1864 Sur- 
geon Joseph Jones, of the Confederate 
army, was detailed by the Surgeon 
General to proceed to Andersonville, 
and investigate and report, upon the 
phenomena of the diseases prevailing 
there. His visit was not for the beue- 
tit of the prisoners, but for purely 
scientific puriK)ses. His report, from 
which I quote, tells a story of such as 
no prisoner could tell, for, if any were 
qualified to make such investigation 
and report, they had no opportunity 
to do so. 

These extracts from the above 
mentioned report are taken from 
"Andersonville," a book which I wish 
every civilized person in the world 
could read. This report was part of 
the testimony offered and accepted at 
the trial of Wirz, and is now on file 
in the office of the Judge Advocate 
General of the United States, at 
Washington. 



"MEDICAL TESTIMONY." 
(Transcript from the printed testimony at 
W irz Trial, pages 618 to 639, inclusive) . 

"Dr. Joseph Jones for the prosecvi- 
tion. 

By the Judge Advocate: 

Question. Where do you reside? 

Answer. In Augusta, Georgia. 

Ques. Are you a graduate of any 
medical college? 

Ans. Of the University of Penn- 
sylvania. 

Ques. How long have you been 
engaged in the practice of medicine? 

Ans. Eight years. 

Ques. Has your experience been 
as a practitioner, or rather as an in- 
vestigator of medicine as a science? 

Ans. Both. 

Ques. What position do you hold 
now? 

Ans. That of Medical Chemist in 
the Medical College of Georgia, at 
Augusta. 

Ques. How long have you held 
your j)Osition in that college? 

xVns. Since 1858. 

Ques. How were you employed 
during the Rebellion? 

Ans. 1 served six months in the 
early part of it as a private in the 
ranks, and the rest of the time in the 
medical department. 

Ques. Under the direction of 
whom? 

Ans. Under the direction of Dr. 
Moore, Surgeon General. 

Ques. Did you, while ncting under 
his direction, visit Andersonville, 
professionally? 

Ans. Yes Sir. 

Ques. For the purpose of making 
investigations there? 

Ans. For the purpose of prosecut- 
ing investigations ordered by the 
Sru'geon General. 

Ques. You went there in obedience 



48 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



to a letter of instructions? 

Ans. In obedience to orders which 
I received. 

Ques. Did you reduce the results 
of your investigations to the shape of 
a report? 

Ans. I was engaged at that work 
when General Johnston surrendered 
his army. 

(A document being handed to witness.) 

Ques. Have you examined this 
extract from your report and com- 
pared it with the original? 

Ans. Yes sir, I have. 

Ques. Is it accurate? 

Ans. So far as my examination, 
extended it is accurate. 

The document just examined by 
witness was offered in evidence, and 
is as follows: 

Observations upon the diseases of the 
Federal prisoners, confined in Gamp 
Sumter, Andersonville, in Sumter county, 
Oeorgia,instituted with a view to illustrate 
chiefly iJie origin and causes of hospital 
gangrene, t?ie relations of continued and 
malarial fevers, and the pathology of camp 
diarrhea and dysentery, by Joseph Jones 
Surgeon P. A. G. S. Professor of Medical 
Chemistry in the Medical College of Geor- 
gia, at Augusta, Georgia. 

Hearing of the unusual mortality 
among the Federal prisoners confined 
at Andersonville, Georgia, in the 
month of August, 1864, during 
a visit to Richmond, Va., I expressed 
to the Surgeon General, S. P. Moore, 
Confederate States of America, a de- 
sire to visit Camp Sumter, with the 
design of instituting a series of in- 
quiries upon the nature and causes of 
the prevailing diseases. Small pox 
had appeared among the prisoners, 
and I believed that this would prove 
an admirable field for the establish- 
ment of its characteristic lesions. 
The condition of Peyer's glands in 
this disease was considered as worthy 
of minute investigation. It was 
believed that a large body of men 
from the northern portion of the 
United States, suddenly transported 
to a warm Southern climate, and con- 
fined upon a small portion of land, 
would iurnish an excellent field for 
the investigation of the relations of 



typhus, typhoid and malarial fevers." 

Then follows a letter of introduc- 
tion to the Surgeon in charge at An- 
dersonville, and a letter to Gen. Win- 
der asking permission to visit the 
Inner Prison, and an order of Win- 
der granting permission. The report 
tlien proceeds. 

''Description of the Confederate States 
Military Prison Hospital at Anderson- 
ville, Number of prisoners, physical con- 
dition, food, clothing, habits, moral condi- 
tion, diseases. 

The Confederate Military Prison at 
Andersonville, Ga., consists of a 
strong Stockade, twenty feet in 
height, enclosing twenty-seven acres. 
The Stockade is formed of strong 
pine logs, firmly planted in the 
ground. The main Stockade is sur- 
rounded by two other similar rows 
of pine logs, the middle stockade 
being sixteen feet high, and the outer 
twelve feet. These are intended for 
offense and defense. If the inner 
stockade should at any time be forced 
by the prisoners, the second forms 
another line of defense; while in case 
of an attempt to deliver the prisoners 
by a force operating upon the exter- 
ior, the outer line forms an ad- 
mirable protection to the Confederate 
t loops, and a most formidable obsta- 
cle to cavalry or infantry. 

The four angles of the outer line 
are strengthened by earth-works upon 
commanding eminences, from which 
the cannon, in case of an outbreak 
among the prisoners, may sweep the 
entire enclosure; and it was designed 
to connect these works by a line of 
rifle pits, running zigzag, around the 
outer stockade; those rifle pits have 
never been completed. The ground 
enclosed by the innermost stockade 
lies in the form of a parallelogram 
the larger diameter running almost 
due north and south. This space in- 
cludes the northern and southern 
opposing sides of two hills, between 
which a stream of water runs from 
west to east. The surface soil of 
these hills is composed chiefly of 
sand with varying admixtures of clay 
and oxide of iron. The clay is suffi- 
ciently tenacious to give a considera- 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



40 



ble degree of consistency to the soil. 
The internal structure of the hills, as 
revealed by the deep wells, is similar 
to that already described. The alter- 
nate layers of clay and sand, as well 
as oxide of iron, which form, in its 
various combinations a cement to the 
sand, allow of extensive tunneling. 
The prisoners not only constructed 
numerous dirt huts with balls of clay 
and sand, taken from the wells which 
they have excavated all over those 
hills, but they have also, in some 
cases, tuimeled extensively from these 
wells. The lower portion of these 
hills, bordering on the stream, are 
wet and boggy from the constant ooz- 
ing of water. The stockade was built 
originally to accommodate only ten 
thousand prisoners, and included ;it 
first seventeen acres. Near the close 
of the month of June the area was 
enlarged by the addition of ten acres. 
The ground added was on the north- 
ern slope of the largest hill. 

Within the circumscribed area of 
the stockade the Federal prisoners 
were compelled to perform all the 
offices of life — cooking, washing, the 
calls of nature, exercise and sleeping. 

During the month of March the 
prison was less crowded than at any 
subsequent time, and the average 
space of ground to each prisoner was 
only 98.7 feet, or less than seven 
square yards. The Federal prisone^-s 
were gathered from all parts of the 
Confederate States east of the Missis- 
sippi, and crowded into the confined 
space, until in the month of June, the 
average number of square feet of 
ground to each prisoner was only 33.2 
or less than four square yards. These 
figures represent the condition of the 
stockade in a better light even than 
it really was; for a considerable 
breadth of land along the stream, 
flowing from west to east between 
the hills, was low and boggy, and was 
covered with the excrement of the 
men, and thus rendered wholly imin- 
habitable, and in fact useless for 
every purpose except that of defeca- 
tion. 

The pines and other small trees and 
shrubs, which originally were sattered 



sparsely over these hills, Avere, in a 
short time, cut down and consumed 
by the prisoners for firewood, and no 
shade tree was left in the entire en- 
closure of the stockade. With their 
characteristic industry and ingenuity, 
the Federals constructed for them- 
selves small huts and caves, and 
attempted to shield themselves from 
the rain and sun and night damps and 
dew. But few tents were distributed 
to the prisoners, and those were in 
most cases torn and rotten. In the loca- 
tion and arrangement of these tents 
and huts no order appears to have 
been followed; in fact, regular streets 
appear to be out of the question in so 
crowded an area; especially too, as 
large bodies of prisoners were from 
time to time added suddenly without 
any previous preparations. The irreg- 
ular arrangement of the huts and im- 
perfect shelters were very unfavora- 
ble for the maintenance of a proper 
system of police. 

The police and interna] economy of 
the prison was left almost entirely in 
the hands of the prisoners them- 
selves; the duties of the Confederate 
soldiers acting as guards being lim- 
ited to the occupation of boxes or 
lookouts ranged around the stockade 
at regular intervals, and to the man- 
ning of the batteries at the angles of 
the prison. Even judicial matters 
pertaining to themselves, as the de- 
tection and punishment of such 
crimes as theft and murder appear to 
have been, in a great measure, aban- 
doned to the prisoners. 

A striking instance of this occurred 
in the month of July, when the Fed- 
eral prisoners within the stockade 
tried, condemned, and hanged six (6) 
of their own number, who had been 
convicted of stealing, and of robbing 
and murdering their fellow prisoners. 
They were all hung upon the same 
day, and thousands of the prisoners 
gathered around to witness the exe- 
cution. The Confederate authorities 
are said not to have interfered with 
these proceedings. In this collection 
of men from all parts of the world, 
every phase of human character was 
represented; the stronger preyed upon 



50 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



the weaker, and even the sick who 
were nnable to defend themselves 
were robbed of their scanty supplies 
of food and clothing. Dark stoiies 
were afloat, of men, both sick and 
well, who were murdered at night, 
strangled to death by comrades for 
scant supplies of clothing or money. 
I heard a sick and wounded Federal 
prisoner accuse his nurse, a fellow 
prisoner of the United States army, 
of having stealthily, during his sleep, 
inoculated his wounded arm with 
gangrene, that he might destroy his 
his life and fall heir to his clothing. 

The large number of men confined 
in the stockade soon, under a defec- 
tive system of police, and with imper- 
fect arrangements, covered the surface 
of the low grounds with excrements. 
The sinks over the lower portions of 
the stream were imperfect in their 
plan and structure, and the excre- 
ments were, in large measure, depos- 
ited so near the border of the stream 
as not to be washed away, or else ac- 
cumulated upon the low boggy 
ground. The volume of water was 
not suflicient to wash away tlie feces, 
and they accumulated in such quan- 
tities in the lower portion of the 
stream as to form a mass of liquid 
excrement. Heavy rains caused the 
water of the stream to rise, and as 
the arrangements for passage 'of the 
increased amounts of water out of 
the stockade were insufficient, the 
liquid feces overflowed the low 
grounds and covered them several 
inches,after subsidence of the waters. 
The action of the sun upon this 
putrefying mass of excrements and 
fragments of bread and meat and 
bones excited most rapid fermenta- 
tion and developed a horrible stench. 
Improvements were projected for the 
removal of the filth and for the pre- 
vention of its accumulation, but they 
were only partially and imperfectly 
carried out. As the forces of the 
prisoners were reduced by confine- 
ment, want of exercise, improper diet, 
and by scurvy, diarrhea, and dysen- 
tery, they were unable to evacuate 
their bowels within the stream or 



along its banks, and the excrements 
were deposited at the very doors of 
their tents. The vast majority ap- 
peared to lose all repulsion to filth, 
and both sick and well disregarded all 
the laws of hygiene and personal 
cleanliness. The accommodations for 
the sick were imperfect and insiiffici- 
ent. 

From the organization of the 
prison, February 24th, 1864, to May 
22d, the sick were treated within tlie 
stockade. In the crowded condition 
of the stockade, and with the tents 
and huts clustered thickly around the 
hospital, it was impossible to secure 
proper ventilation or to maintain the 
necessary police. The Federal pris- 
oners also made frequent forays upon 
the hospital stores and carried off the 
food and clothing of the sick. The 
liospital was on the 22d of May re- 
moved to its present site without the 
stockade, and five acres of ground 
covered with oaks aiul pines appro- 
priated to the use of the sick. 

The supply of medical officers has 
been insufficient from the foundation 
of the prison. 

The nurses and attendants upon the 
sick have been most generally Federal 
prisoners, who in too many cases ap- 
pear to have been devoid of moral 
principle, and who not only neglected 
their duties, but were also engaged in 
extensive robbing of the sick. 

From the want of proper police and 
hygienic regulations alone it is not 
wonderful that from February 24th 
to September 21st, 1864, nine thousand 
four hundred and seventy-nine deaths 
nearly one third of the entire number 
of prisoners, should have been re- 
corded. I found the stockade and 
hospital in the following condition 
during my pathological investigations, 
instituted in the month of September, 
1864: 

Stockade, Confederate States Mili- 
tary Prison. 

At the time of my visit to Ander- 
sonville a large number of Federal 
prisoners had been removed to Millen, 
Savannah, Charleston and other parts 
of the Confederacy, in anticipation 
of an advance of General Sherman's 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



51 



forces from Atlanta, with the design 
of liberating their captive brethren: 
however, about fifteen thousand pris- 
oners remained confined within the 
limits of the stockade and Confeder- 
ate States Military Prison Hospital. 
In the stockade, with the exception 
of the damp low lands bordering the 
small stream, the surface was covered 
with huts, and small ragged tents and 
parts of blankets and fragments of 
oil-cloth, coats, and blankets stretched 
upon sticks. The tents and huts 
were not arranged according to any 
order, and there was in most parts of 
the enclosure scarcely room for two 
men to walk abreast between the 

tents and huts. 

******* 

Each day the dead from the stock- 
ade were carried out by their fellow 
prisoners and deposited upon the 
ground under a bush arbor just out- 
side the southwestern gate. From 
thence they were carried in carts to 
the burying ground, one quarter of a 
mile northwest of the prison. The 
dead were buried without cofflus, side 
by side, in trenches four feet deep. 

The low grounds bordering the 
stream were covered with human ex- 
crements and flltli of all kinds, which 
in many places appeared to be alive 
with working maggots. An indes- 
cribable sickening stench arose from 
these fermenting masses of human 
filth. 

There were near five thousand ser- 
iously ill Federals in the stockade 
and Confederate States Military 
Prison Hospital, and the deaths ex- 
ceeded one hundred per day, and large 
numbers of the prisoners who were 
walking about, and who had not been 
entered upon the sick reports, were 
suffering from severe and incurable 
diarrhea, dysentery and scurvy. The 
sick were attended almost entirely by 
their fellow prisoners, appointed as 
nurses, and as they received but little 
attention, they were compelled to 
exert themselves at all times to 
attend to the calls of nature, and 
hence, they retained the power of 
moving about to within a compara- 
tively short period of the close of life. 



Owing to the slow progress of the 
diseases most prevalent, diarrhea and 
chronic dysentery, the corpses were 
as a general rule emaciated. 
I visited two thousand sick within the 
stockade, lying under some long sheds 
which had been built at the northern 
portion for themselves. At this time 
only one medical officer was in at- 
tendance, whereas at least twenty 
medical officers should have been em- 
ployed. 
* * * * * # 

Scurvy, diarrhea, dysentery, and 
hospital gangrene were the prevailing 
diseases. I was surprised to find but 
few cases of malarial fever, and no 
well marked cases either of typluis or 
typhoid fever. The absence of the 
different forms of malarial fever may 
be accounted for on the supposition 
that the artificial atmosphere of the 
stockade, crowded densely with 
human beings and loaded with animal 
exhalations, was unfavorable to the 
existence and action of malarial 
poison. The absence of typhoid and 
typhus fevers amongst all the causes 
which are supposed to generate these 
diseases, appeared to be due to the 
fact that the great majority of these 
prisoners had been in captivity in 
Virginia, at Belle Island, and in other 
parts of the Confederacy for months, 
and even as long as two years, and 
during this time they had been sub- 
jected to the same bad influences, and 
those who had not had these fevers 
before either had them during their 
confinement in Confederate prisons 
or else their systems, from long ex- 
posure were proof against their 
action. 

The effects of scurvy were mani- 
fested on every hand, and in all its 
various stages, from the muddy pale 
complexion, pale gums, feeble, lan- 
guid muscular motions, lowness of 
spirits, and fetid breath, to the dusky, 
dirty leaden complexion, swollen fea- 
tures, spongy purple, livid, fungoid, 
bleeding gums, loose teeth, cedema- 
tous limbs, covered with livid vibices 
and petechiae spasmodically flexed, 
painful and hardened extremities, 
spontaneous hemorrhages from muc- 



52 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE 



ous canals, and large, ill conditioned, 
spreading ulcers covered with a dark 
purplish fungus growth. I observed 
that in some cases of scurvy the par- 
otid glands were greatly swollen, and 
in some instances to such an extent 
as to preclude entirely the power to 
articulate. In several cases of dropsy 
of the abdomen and lower extremi- 
ties supervening upon scurvy, the 
patients affirmed that previously to 
the appearance of the dropsy they 
had suffered with profuse and obsti- 
nate diarrhea, and that when this was 
checked by a change of diet, from 
Indian corn bread baked with the 
husk, to boiled rice, the dropsy ap- 
peared. The severe pains and livid 
patches were frequently associated 
with swellings in various parts, and 
especially in the lower extremities, 
accompanied with stiffness and con- 
tractions of the knee joints and an- 
kles, and often with a burning feel of 
the parts, as if lymph had been 
effused between the integuments and 
apeneuroses, preventing the motion 
of the skin over the swollen parts. 
Many of the prisoners believed that 
the survy was contagious, and I saw 
men guarding their wells and springs, 
fearing lest some man suffering with 
scurvy might use the water and thus 
poison them. I observed also num- 
erous cases of hospital gangrene and 
of spreading scorbutic ulcers, which 
had supervened upon slight injuries. 
The scorbutic ulcers presented a dark 
purple fungoid, elevated surface, with 
livid swollen edges, exuded a thin, 
fetid sanious fluid, instead of pus. 
Many ulsers which originated from 
the sorbutic condition of the system 
appeared to become truly gangrene- 
ous, assuming all the characteristics 
of hospital gangrene. 

From the crowded condition, filthy 
habits, bad diet, and dejected de- 
pressed condition of the prisoners, 
their systems had become so disor- 
dered that the smallest abrasion of 
the skin from the rubbing of a shoe, 
or from the effects of the sun, or 
from the prick of a splinter, or from 
scratching or a mosquito bite, in 
some cases took on rapid and fright- 



ful ulceration and gangrene. The 
long use of salt meat, ofttimes im- 
perfectly cured, as well as the most 
total deprivation of vegetables and 
fruit, appeared to be the chief cause 
of scurvy. I carefully examined the 
bakery and the bread furnished the 
prisoners, and found that they were 
supplied almost entirely with corn 
bread from which the husk had not 
been separated. This husk acted as 
an irritant to the alimentary canal, 
without adding any nutriment to the 
bread. As far as my examination 
extended no fault could be found 
with the mode in which the bread 
was baked; the difficulty lay in the 
failure to separate the husk from the 
corn meal. I strongly urged the pre- 
paration of large quantities of soup 
made from the cow and calves heads 
with the brains and tongues to which 
a liberal supply of sweet potatoes and 
vegetables might have been advan- 
tageously added. The material ex- 
isted in abundance for the prepara- 
tion of such soup in large quantities 
with but little additional expense. 
Such aliment would have been not 
only highly nutritious, but it would 
also have acted as an efficient reme- 
dial agent for the removal of the 
scorbutic condition. The sick with- 
in the stockade lay under several long 
sheds which were orginally built for 
barracks. These sheds covered two 
floors which were open on all sides. 
The sick lay upon the bare boards, or 
upon such ragged blankets as they 
possessed, without, as far as I ob- 
served, any bedding or even straw. 
* * * * # 

The haggard, distressed countenan- 
ces of these miserable, complaining 
dejected, living skeletons, crying for 
medical aid and food, and cursing 
their Government for its refusal to 
exchange prisoners, and the ghastly 
corpses with their glazed eyeballs 
staring up into vacant space, with the 
flies swarming down their open grin- 
ning mouths, and over their ragged 
clothes infested with numerous lice, 
as they lay amongst the sick and dy- 
ing formed a picture of helpless,hope- 
less misery which it would be im- 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



53 



possible to portray by words or by 
the brush. A feeling of disappoint- 
ment and even resentment on 
account of the action of the 
United States Government upon 
the subject of exchange of prison- 
ers, appeared to be widespread, and 
the apparent hopeless, nature of the 
negotiations for some general ex- 
change of prisoners appeared to be a 
cause of universal regret and deep 
and injurious despondency. I heard 
some of the prisoners go so far as to 
exonerate the Confederate Govern- 
ment from any charge of intention- 
ally subjecting them to a protracted 
confinement, with its necessary and 
unavoidable sufferings in a country 
cut off from all intercourse with for- 
eign nations, and sorely pressed on 
all sides, whilst on the other hand 
they charged their prolonged cap- 
tivity upon their own Government, 
which was attempting to make the 
negro equal to the white man. Some 
hundreds or more of the prisoners 
had been released from confinement 
in tlie stockade on parole, and filled 
various offices as clerks, druggists, 
carpenters, etc., in the various depart- 
ments. These men were well clothed 
and presented a stout and healthy 
appearance,and as a general rule,they 
presented a much more robust and 
healthy appearance than the Confed- 
erate troops guarding the prisoners. 
# * * » * 

The entire grounds are surrounded 
by a frail board fence, and are strictly 
guarded by Confederate soldiers, and 
no prisoner, except the paroled at- 
tendants, is allowed to leave the 
grounds except V)y a special permit 
from the commandant of the interior 
of the prison. 

The patients and attendants, near 
two thousand in number, are crowded 
into this confined space and are but 
poorly supplied with old and ragged 
tents. Large numbers of them were 
without any bunks in the tents, and 
lay upon the ground, ofttimes with- 
out even a blanket. No beds or straw 
appeared to have been furnished. 
The tents extend to within a few 
yards of the small stream, the east- 



ern portion of which, as we have 
befoie said, is used as a privy and is 
loaded with excrements; and I ob- 
served a large pile of corn bread, 
bones, and filth of all kinds, thirty 
feet in diameter and several feet in 
hight, swarming with myriads of 
flies, in a vacant space near the pots 
used for cooking. Millions of flies 
swarmed over everything and covered 
the faces of the sleeping patients, and 
crawled down their open mouths and 
deposited their maggots in the gang- 
renous wounds of the living and in 
the mouths of the dead. 

Mosquitoes in great numbers also in- 
fested the tents, and many of the 
patients were so stung by these pesti- 
ferous insects, that they resembled 
those suffering from a slight attack 
of the measles. 

The police and hygiene of the hos- 
pital were defective in the extreme; 
the attendants, who aiipeared in al- 
most every instance to have been 
selected from the prisoners, seemed 
to have, in many cases, but little in- 
terest in the welfare of their fellow 
captives. The accusation was made 
that the nurses, in many cases, robbed 
the sick of their clothing, money, and 
rations, and carried on a clandestine 
trade with the paroled prisoners and 
confederate guards without the hos- 
pital enclosure, in the clothing,eflfects 
of the sick, dying, and dead Federals. 
They certainly appeared to neglect 
the comfort and cleanliness of the 
sick intrusted to their care in a most 
shameful manner, even after making 
due allowances for the difficulties of 
the situation. Many of tlie sick were 
literally encrusted with dirt and fllth 
and covered with vermin. 

When a gangrenous wound needed 
washing, the limb was thrust out a 
little from the blanket, or board, or 
rags upon which the patient was lay- 
ing, and water poured over it, and all 
the putrescent matter allowed to soak 
into the ground floor of the tent. 
The supply of rags for dressing 
wounds was said to be very scant, 
and I saw the most filthy rags which 
had been applied several times, and 
imperfectly washed, used in dressing 



54 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



wounds. Where hospital gangrene 
was prevailing, it was impossible for 
any wound to escape contagion under 
tliese circumstances. The result of 
the treatment of wounds in the hos- 
pital were of the most unsatisfactory 
character, from this neglect of clean- 
liness, in the dressings and wounds 
themselves, as well as from various 
other causes which will be more fully 
considered. I saw several gangren- 
ous wounds filled with maggots, I 
have frequently seen neglected 
wounds among Confederate soldiers 
similarly affected; and as far as my 
experience extends these worms des- 
troy only the dead tissues and do not 
injure specially the well parts. I 
have even heard surgeons affirm tliat 
a gangrenous wound which had been 
thoroughly cleansed by maggots, 
healed nnn-e rapidly than if it had 
been left to itself. This want of 
cleanliness on the part of the nurses 
appeared to lie the result of careless- 
ness and inattention, rather than of 
malignant design, and the whole 
trouble can be traced to the want of 
proper police and sanitary regulations 
and to the absence of intelligent or- 
ganization and division of labor. 

The abuses were in large measure 
due to the almost total absence of 
system, government, and rigid, but 
wholesome sanitary regulations. In 
extenuation of these abuses it was 
alleged by the medical officers that 
the Confederate troojis were barely 
sufficient to guard the prisoners, and 
that it was impossible to obtain any 
number of experienced nurses from 
the Confederate forces. In fact the 
guard appeared to be too small, even 
for the regulation of the internal 
hygiene and police of the hospital. 

The manner of disposing of the 
dead was also calculated to depress 
the already desponding spirits of 
these men, many of whom liave been 
confined for months, and even for 
nearly two years in Richmond and 
other places, and whose strength had 
been wasted by bad air, bad food, and 
neglect of personal cleanliness. 

The dead-house is merely a frame 
covered with old tent cloth and a few 



brusheSjSituated in the south-western 
corner of the hospital gi'ounds. 
When a patient dies, he is simply 
laid in the narrow street in front of 
his tent, until he is removed by Fed- 
eral negroes detailed to carry off the 
dead; if a patient dies during the 
night he lies there until morning, 
and during the day, even the dead 
were frequently allowed to remain 
for hours in these walks. In the 
dead-house the corpses lie upon the 
bare ground, and were in most cases 

covered with filth and vermin. 

***** 

The cooking arrangements are of 
the most defective character. Five 
large iron pots similar to those used 
lor boiling sugar cane, appeared to 
be the only cooking utensils furn- 
ished by the hospital for the cooking 
of nearly two thousand men; and the 
patients were dependent in great 
measure upon their own miserable 
utensils. Tliey were allowed to cook 
in the tent dt)ors and in the lanes, and 
tliis w;is another source of filth, and 
another favoralde condition for the 
generation and uiultiplication of flies 
and other vermin. 

Tlie air of the tents was foul and 
disagreeable in the extreme, and in 
fact the entire grounds emitted a 
most nauseous and disgusting smell. 
I entered nearly all the tents and 
carefully examined all the cases of 
interest, and especially the cases of 
gangrene, upon numerous occasions, 
during the prosecution of my path- 
ological inquiries at Andersonville. 
and tlierefore enjoyed every oppor- 
tunity to judge correctly of the hy- 
giene and police of the hospital. 

There appeared to Vje absolute in- 
difference and neglect on the pait of 
the patients of personal cleanliness; 
their persons and clothing, in most 
instances, and especially of those sui- 
fering with gangrene and scorbutic 
ulcers, were filthy in the extreme and 
covered with vermin. It was too 
often the ease that patients were re- 
ceived from the Stockade in a most 
deplorable condition. I have seen 
men brought in from the stockade in 
a dying condition, begrimed from 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



55 



head to foot with their own exci-e- 
ments, and so black from smoke and 
filth that they resembled negroes 
rather than white men. That this 
description of the stockade and hos- 
pital has not been overdrawn, will 
appear from the reports of the sur- 
geons in charge, appended to this 
report. 

* * n * * 

CONCLUSIONS. 

1st. The great mortality among 
the Federal prisoners confined in the 
military prison at Andersonville was 
not referable to climatic causes, or to 
the nature of the soil and waters. 

2d. The chief causes of death 
were scurvy and its results and bowel 
affections, chronic and acute diarrhea 
and dysentery. The bowel affections 
appear to have been due to the diet, 
the habits of the patients, the de- 
pressed, dejected state of the nervous 
system and moral and intellectual 
powers, and to the effluvia arising 
from decomposing animal and vegeta- 
ble tilth. The effects of salt meat, 
and an unvarying diet of corn meal, 
with but few vegetables, and imper- 
fect supplies of vinegar and syruj^, 
were manifested in the great preval- 
ence of scurvy. This disease, without 
doubt, was also influenced to an im- 
portant extent in its origin Hud course 
by the foul animal emanations. 

3d. From the sameness of the 
food and form, the action of the pois- 
sonous gases in the densely crowded 
and filthy stockade and hospital, the 
blood was altered in its constitution, 
even before the manifestation, of 
actual disease. In both the well and 
the sick red corpuscles were dimin- 
ished; and in all diseases uncompli- 
cated with inflammation, the fibrous 
element was deficient. In cases of 
ulceration of the mucous membrane 
of the intestinal canal the fibrous 
element of the blood was increased; 
while in simple diarrhea, uncompli- 
cated with ulceration, it was either 
diminished or else remained station- 
ary. Heart clots were very common, 
if not universally present, in cases of 
ulceration of the intestinal mucous 
membrane, while in the uncompli. 



cated cases of diarrhea and scurvy, 
the blood was fluid and did not coag- 
ulate readily, and the heart clots and 
fibrous concretions were almost un- 
iversally absent. From the watery 
condition of the blood, there resulted 
various serous effusions into the per- 
icardium, ventricles of the brain, and 
into the abdomen. In almost all the 
cases which I examined after death, 
even the more emaciated, there, was 
more or less serous effusion into the 
abdominal cavity. In cases of hos- 
pital gangrene of the extremities, 
and in cases of gangrene of the intes- 
tines, heart clots and fibrous coagula- 
tions wfif universally present. The 
presence ui' those clots in the cases of 
hospital gangrene, while they were 
absent in the cases in which there 
was no inflamatory symptoms, sus- 
tains the conclusion that hospital 
gangrene is a species of inflammation, 
imperfect and irregular though it may 
be in its progress, in which the fibrous 
element and coagulation of the blood 
are iucreasetl, even in those who are 
suffering from sucli a condition of the 
blood, and from such diseases as are 
naturally accompanied with a decrease 
in tlie fil)rous constituent. 

4th. The fact that hospital gan- 
grene appeared in the stockade first; 
and oi'iginated spontaneously with- 
out any previous contagion, and oc- 
curred sporadically all over the stock- 
ade and jnnson hospital, was proof 
positive tliat this disease will arise 
whenever the conditions of crowding, 
filth, foul air and bad diet are present. 
The exiialations from the hospital 
and stockade appeared to exert their 
effects to a considerable distance out- 
s'de of these localities. The origin 
of hospital gangrene among these 
prisoners appeared clearly to depend 
in great measure upon the state of 
the general system induced by diet, 
ard various external noxious influ- 
ences. The rapidity of the appear- 
ance and action of the gangrene de- 
pended upon the powers and state of 
the constitution, as well as upon the 
intensity of the poison in the atmos- 
phere, or upon the direct application 
of poisonous matter to the wounded 



56 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



surface. This was further illustrated 
by the important fact that hospital 
gangrene, or a disease resembling it 
in all essential respects, attacked the 
intestinal canal of patients laboring 
under ulceration of the bowels, al- 
though there was no local manifesta- 
tions of gangrene upon the surface of 
the body. This mode of termination 
in cases of dysentery was quite com- 
mon in the foul atmosphere of the 
Confederate States Military Hospital 
in the depressed, depraved condition 
of the system of these Federal 
prisoners. 

5th. A scorbutic condition of the 
system appeared to favor the origin 
of foul ulcers which frequently took 
on true hospital gangrene. Scurvy 
and hospital gangrene frequently ex- 
isted in the same individual. In such 
cases, vegetable diet, with vegetable 
acids, would remove the scorbutic 
condition without curing the hospital 
gangrene. From the results of the 
existing war for the establishment of 
the independence of the Confederate 
States, as well as from the published 
observations of Dr. Trotter, Sir Gil- 
bert Blane, and others of the English 
navy and army, it is evident that the 
scorbutic condition of the system, es- 
pecially in crowded ships an I camps, 
is the most favorable to the oiigin 
and spread of foul ulcers and hospital 
gangrene. As in the present case of 
Andersonville, so also in past times 
when medical hygiene was almost en- 
tirely neglected, those two diseases 
were almost universally associated in 
crowded ships. In many cases is was 
very difficult to decide at first 
whether the ulcer was a simple result 
of scurvy or of the action of the 
prison or hospital gangrene, for there 
was great similarity in the appear- 
ance of the ulcers in the two diseases, 
so commonly have these two diseases 
been combined in their origin and 
action, that the description of scor- 
butic ulcers, by many authors evi- 
dently includes also many of the 
prominent characteristics of hospital 
gangrene. This will be rendered 
evident by an examination of the ob- 
servations of Dr. Lind and Sir Gilbert 



Blane upon scorbutic ulcers. 

6th. Gangrenous spots followed by 
rapid destruction of tissue appeared 
in some cases where there had been 
no known wound. Without such 
well established facts, it might be 
assumed that the disease was propa- 
gated from one patient to another. 
In such a filthy and crowded hospital 
as that of the Confederate States 
Military Prison at Andersonville, it 
was impossible to isolate the wounded 
from the sources of actual contact of 
the gangrenous matter. The flies 
swarming over the wounds and over 
filth of every kind. The filthy, im- 
perfectly washed and scanty supplies 
of rags, and the limited supply of 
washing utensils, the same wash-bowl 
serving for scores of patients, were 
sources of such constant circulation 
of the gangrenous nlatter that the 
disease might rapidly spread from a 
single gangrenous wound. The fact 
already stated, that a form of moist 
gangrene, resembling hospital gang- 
rene, was quite common in this foul 
atmosphere, in cases of dysentry, 
both with and without the existence 
of the disease upon the entire surface 
not only demonstrates the dependence 
of the disease upon the state of the 
constitution, but proves in the clear- 
est manner that neither the contact 
of the poisonous matter of gangrene, 
nor the direct action of the poisonous 
atmosphere upon the ulcerated sur- 
face is necessary to the developement 
of the disease. 

7th. In this foul atmosphere am- 
putation did not arrest hospital gang- 
rene, the disease almost invariably 
returned. Almost every amputation 
was followed finally by death, either 
from the effects of gangrene or from 
the prevailing diarrhea or dysentry. 
Nitric acid and escharotics generally 
in this crowded atmosphere, loaded 
with noxious effluvia, exerted only 
tempoiary effects; after their applica- 
tion to the diseased surfaces, the 
gangrene would frequently return 
with redoubled energy; and even 
after the gangrene had been com- 
pletely removed by local and consti- 
tutional treatment, it would fre- 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



57 



quently return and destroy the pa- 
tient. As far as my observation er- 
tended, very few of the cases of am- 
putation for gangrene recovered. 
The progress of these cases was fre- 
quently very deceptive. I have ob- 
served after death the most extensive 
disorganization of the structures of 
the stump, when during life there 
was but little swelling of the part, 
and the patient was apparently doing 
well. I endeavored to impress upon 
the medical officers the view that in 
this disease treatment was almost 
useless, without an abundant supply 
of pure, fresh air, nutritious food, 
and tonics and stimulants. Such 
changes, however, as would allow of 
the isolation of the cases of hospital 
gangrene appeared to be out of the 
power of the medical officers. 

8th. The gangrenous mass was with- 
out true pus, and consisted chiefly of 
broken-down, disorganized structures. 
The reaction of the gangrenous mat- 
ter in certain stages was alkaline. 

9th. The best, and in truth the only 
means of i)rotecting large armies and 
navies, as well as prisoners, from the 
ravages of hospital gangrene, is to 
furnish liberal supplies of well cured 
meat, together with fresh beef and 
vegetables, and to enforce a rigid 
system of hygiene. 

10th. Finally, this gigantic mass 
of human misery calls loudly fen* re- 
lief, not only for the sake of suffering 
humanity, but also on account of our 
own brave soldiers now captives in 
the hands of the Federal Government. 
Strict justice to tlie gallant men of 
the Confederate Armies, who have 
been or who may l»e, so unfortunate 
as to be compelled to surrender in 
battle, demands that the Confederate 
Government should adopt that course 
which will best secure their health 
and comfort in captivity; or at least, 
leave their enemies without a shadow 
of an excuse for any violation of the 
rules of civilized warfare in the treat- 
ment of prisoners." 

(End of witnesses' testimony.) 

This was the testimony of a scien- 
tific medical officer, who was so 



thoroughly a rebel that he served as 
a private for six months in the Con- 
federate army, and yet so humane as 
to condemn the barbarous treatment 
imposed on helpless men by such 
fiends as Winder and "VVirz. 

Let me call the readers particular 
attention to a few points in the test- 
imony of Dr. Jones. 

First. As to his charge of filthiness. 
He states the truth, as any ex-Ander- 
sonville prisoner too well knows, but 
he does not inform his Government 
as to the cause. He does not say that 
these men were turned, like so many 
swine, into the stockade, after being 
robbed of everything of value. That 
no cooking utensils were furnished, 
that not an ounce of soap was issued 
to the prisoners after May 1st, 1864. 
But he does tell us that water was 
scarce, and filthy beyond the power of 
description, he does tell how these 
men became dispirited by long con- 
finement, by bad diet and worse 
drink, and by their filthy surround- 
ings, and by the constant presence of 
death. What Avonder that men un- 
der all these discouraging cii'cum- 
stances soon fell to the level of 
brutes ? And yet all were not so 
filthy; all did not lose their instincts 
of manhood, but through all these 
discouraging surroundings, observed, 
as well as possible under the circum- 
stances, the laws of health. Were it 
not so this story would never have 
been written. 

Second. He speaks of hearing some 
of the prisoners exonerate the Con- 
federate Government, and lay all the 
blame of their conLinued imprison- 
ment on the Federal Government. 
There is too much truth in this state- 
ment to be pleasant to us as patriots, 
but let us see if these men were 
wholly to blame in this matter. 

We had heard all sorts of discour- 
aging rumors for the last ten months. 
The rebels had told us that Lincoln 
would not exchange prisoners unless 
the negroes were put upon the same 
basis as whites. That was just and 
honorable in the Government, but it 
was death to us. The fact is that of 
all the forty-five thousand prisoners 



58 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



that I saw in Andersonville there 
were not to exceed a half dozen 
negroes, and they were officers' wait- 
ers. The rebels did not take negroes 
prisoners who were captured in arms, 
they killed them on the spot, and we 
knew it, but perhaps our Government 
did not. 

For my own part I never exoner- 
ated Confederates for the part they 
took in cases where they might have 
done better. It is true that they 
could not furnish us such a quality of 
food as our Government furnished 
Confederate prisoners, but the excuse 
that they liad not enough for their 
own soldiers is too tiimsy as shown 
by the supplies that Sherman's men 
found in Georgia on that famous 
"March to the Sea" after we had 
been removed from Andei'sonville. 
And even if they were short of food, 
they had enough pure air and water, 
and enough land so that we need not 
have been compelled to drink our own 
filth, nor breathe the foul effluvia aris- 
ing from the putrefaction of our ex- 
crements, nor be crowded at the rate 
of thirty-three thousand men on 
twelve acres of ground, as we were at 
Andersonville. There was wood 
enough so that men need not have 
been compelled to eat corn meal raw. 
There was no valid excuse for rob- 
bing men of their little all and then 
turning them into those prisons, to 
live or die, as best they could. 

When we come to the part our 
Government took in this matter it is 
simply this; General Grant was of the 
opinion that we could perform our 
duty as soldiers better in those pris- 
ons than we could if exchanged. Ex- 
change meant giving a fat rebel sol- 
dier, ready to take the field, for a 
yankee skeleton ready for the hospital 
or the grave. Considered as a mili- 
tary measure I admit it was right; 
but considered from a humanitarian 
point, it was simply hellish. 

Do you wonder that we thought 
our Government had forgotton, or 



did not care for us ? And yet when 
the crucial test came, when life and 
liberty, food and clothing, were of- 
fered us at the price of our loyalty to 
our Government, our reply was "no. 
we will let the lice carry us out 
through the cracks, before we will 
take the oath of allegiance to the 
Confederacy, we will accept deatli 
but not dishonor." 

Don't blame us if we were discour- 
aged and disheartened, if we did 
gi-owl at, and find fault with, a gov- 
ernment which we imagined had 
deserted us in the hour of our great- 
est need; we were true and loyal after 
all, and if you had been placed in the 
same condition you would have done 
just the same. 

Third. Dr. Jones in speaking of 
those prisoners who were paroled and 
were at work on the outside of the 
stockade says: "These men were 
well clothed, and presented a stout 
and healthy appearance, and as a gen- 
eral rule they presented a much more 
robust appearance than the Confeder- 
ate troops guarding them." 

Why not ? they had plenty of ex- 
ercise, good water, fresh air, and 
enough food so that they could pur- 
chase their good clothes with the sur- 
plus which accrued after their own 
wants had been satisfied. They were 
naturally more robust men than those 
Home Guards, and their situation 
had enabled them to keep in a normal 
condition. Had the prisoners in the 
stockade received the same treat- 
ment as the paroled men who were 
at work outside of the stockade, 
they would have presented the same 
robust appearance, but that stockade 
and those guards could not have held 
us and the rebels kncAV it. 

I have introduced the report of Dr. 
Jones for the benefit of a class of 
persons who are inclined to doubt the 
statements of ex-prisoners, and I sub- 
mit that he tells a more terrible 
story than any of us can tell. 



CHAPTER XII. 



PROGRESS OF THE WAR. 

"The news has flown frae mouth to mouth, 
The North for ance has bang'd the South" ; 

Scott. 

Wliile we were waiting, and hoping, 
and starving,and dying at Anderson- 
ville our armies were fast solving thc^ 
problem of the Rebellion. Jeff Davis 
had tired of the policy of General 
,Josev)h E. .Johnson, who Avas in com- 
mand of the army wliich confronted 
Sherman, and about the middle of 
July relieved him of his command 
and appointed Hood to his place. 

Johnson's policy during the Atlanta 
campaign had been tliat of defense. 
Davis was in favor of aggressive wai-- 
fare. He believed in driving the in- 
vaders from the sacred soil of the 
South. A grand idea surely, but then, 
the invaders had a word to say in that 
matter; they had come to stay, and 
Jeff Davis' manifestoes had no terri- 
fying effect upon them. Hood im- 
mediately assumed the aggressive 
and on the 21st of July came out from 
behind his entrenchments and at- 
tacked Sherman. 

On the 22d the battle of Atlanta 
was fought, in which General Mc- 
Pherson was killed. The command 
of the army of the Tennessee then 
fell upon General John A.Logan for a 
few days, when he was superseded 
by General O. 0. Howard. There has 
been much criticism upon this act of 
General Sherman. Logan had as- 
sumed command of the army of the 
Tennessee upon the death of McPher- 
son, during a hotly contested battle, 
and he had fought the battle to a suc- 
cessful termination. He had fought 
his way from colonel of a regiment, 
to Major General commanding an 
Army Corps, and temporarily com- 
manding an army. He had shown 
the highest type of military ability 
shown by any volunteer officer, and 



yet he was compelled to give place 
to a transplanted officer from the 
army of the Potomac. 

Logan and his friends felt this 
deeply, but with true patriotic in- 
stincts he, and they, continued to 
fight for the cause of Liberty and 
Union. No satisfactory reason has 
ever been given for this act of in- 
justice on the part of General Sher- 
man, but it is hinted that it was be- 
cause Logan was not a graduate of 
West Point. The action of General 
Sherman in this matter is all the 
more inexplicable when we compare 
tlie stupendous failure of Howard at 
Chancellorsville, but little more than 
a year before, with the signal success 
of Logan at Atlanta on the 22d of 
July. But time brings its revenge. 
Howard lias passed into comparative 
obscurity. We hear of him occasion- 
ally as a lecturer before a Chautau- 
qua Society in some small town or 
city, "only tiiis and nothing more," 
while John A. I^ogan went down to 
his grave, loved and revered, as the 
highest representative of the Ameri- 
can Volunteer soldier. His name is 
inscribed on the imperishable roll of 
fame by the side of the names of 
Sheridan, Thomas, and Hancock. 

But the victory of the Federals at 
the battle of Atlanta did not include 
the surrender of the city. Sherman 
sent a cavalry corps under General 
Stoneman to capture Macon, Ga. In 
this he failed, but he destroyed con- 
siderable property, including railroad, 
rolling stock, bridges and supplies 
and seriously threatened Macon, 
giving Winder, at Andersonville, a 
terrible scare, which resulted in the 
General Order which I have copied 
in a previous chapter. Sherman find- 
ing that Atlanta was not to be cap- 
tured without a fight more serious 
than he cared to risk, moved by the 



60 



riFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



flank to Jonesboru south of Atlanta, 
thus cutting ofl: the supplies for At- 
lanta. On the 1st of September he 
moved his army up to within twenty 
miles of Atlanta, and on tlie 2d Gen- 
eral Slocum moved his forces into 
that city. 

Great was the rejoicing all over the 
North when the news was flashed over 
the wires that Sherman had captured 
the"Gate City'"of the South, and a cor- 
responding feeling of gloom settled 
down upon the Southern people when 
they found that Hood, with the as- 
sistance of the counsels of Beaure- 
gard, could not cope with "Uncle 
Billy" and his veterans. 

In the meantime the army under 
General Grant had not been idle. On 
May 3d and 4th the army of the Poto- 
mac moved from its camp on the 
north of the Rapidan and commenced 
a campaign which was destined to 
result in the downfall of the capital 
of the Confederacy, and ultimately of 
the Confederacy itself. In the battles 
of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, 
North Anna and Cold Harbor, our 
forces showed the aggressive spirit 
inspired by their great leader, ably 
seconded by Meade, Hancock, the 
lamented Sedgwick, Warren, Wright 
and Burnside. While the Confeder- 
ate forces under their favorite leader 
Lee, witli his Lieutenants, Anderson. 
Early and Hill, resisted the inroads 
of the Federal forces with a bravery 
born of a determination to die in the 
visionary "last ditch." 

But superior numbers, coupled 
with equal bravery and ability, are 
bound to win in the end. and on the 
15th of June 1864 Grant's army was 
before Petersburg with a determina- 
tion to pound the Rebels into sub- 
mission. 

If the battle of Atlanta caused fear 
and trembling among the rebs at 
Andersonville, the fall of that city 
caused a perfect panic among them. 

On the 3d of September a train 
load of one thousand men was shipped 
away from the prison, and each day 
after that saw the exodus of a like 
number, until all who were able to 
walk to the station had been shipped 



to more secure points. Some were 
sent to Millen and Savannah, Ga., and 
some to Charleston, and Columbia, 
South Carolina. 

During the latter part of August 
long sheds with an upper and lower 
floor, and open at the sides, had been 
built in the northern portion of the 
stockade. The carpenters who per- 
formed the labor of building these 
sheds or barracks,as they were called, 
were of our own numbers. They 
received as compensation for their 
labor an extra ration of food, aiid 
they thought themselves lucky to get 
a chance to work for their board, as 
indeed, they were. 

On the 5th Ole Gilbert, Rouse, and 
myself left our quarters near the 
swamp, and moved into the sheds. 
We gave up our well with regret, as 
it had proved to be a great blessing 
tt) us, but September had come, and 
soon the storms of the autumnal 
equinox would be upon us, and our 
little tent, made of a ragged blanket 
and pine boughs, would but poorly 
shelter us from the storm. 

We took up our qnarteis on the 
upper floor, with no straw for bed- 
ding, nothing between our skeleton 
like bodies and the floor but a piece 
of ragged blanket. We suffered ter- 
ribly for the lack of bedding, our pro- 
truding hip bones could not possibly 
reconcile themselves to the hard floor 
and we were rolling about continually 
trying to find some part of our 
anatomy that would fit a pine board, 
but we never found it. But we did 
find a little purer air than we found 
down by the excrement burdened 
swamp, the foul gases arising from 
decomposing human excrements fer- 
menting in a hot sun were not quite 
so strong and nauseous and besides 
we had a little more room. Day by 
day the thinning process went on, 
there being two strong powers at 
work to accomplish the task, death 
and the trains of cars. 

I have never been quite satisfied 
with the tables of mortality pub- 
lished with reference to Anderson- 
ville. Dr. Jones in his report, gives 
the number who died between Feb. 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



61 



24th anrl September 21st, 1804, as nine 
thousand four hundred and seventy- 
nine. McElroy gives twelve thous- 
and nine hundred and twelve as the 
whole number that died during the 
time Andersonville was used as a 
prison. 

I think both statements are far be- 
low the truth although I have only 
parole testimony to prove my position. 
While on the way from Andersonville 
to Charleston, I overlieard a private 
conversation between two prisoners 
upon the subject of tlie number of 
deaths at Andersonville. One of them 
claimed to be the Hospital Steward 
who kept the records at that place, 
and he told his companion that he 
had a copy of the death record and 
that twelve thousand six hundred 
and twenty odd had died up to the 
date of leaving the prison, which was 
Sept. 11th. and that he intended to 
carry the copy through the lines with 
him when he was exchanged. One 
of the prisoners who was paroled in 
December following did have a copy 
of the register and showed it at the 
office of the War Department in 
Washington, it was not returned to 
him and he afterward stole it from 
the office, was arrested and imprison- 
ed for the theft and was finally liber- 
ated through the intercession of Miss 
Clara Barton, "the soldiers' friend." 
The man was a member of a Con- 
necticut regiment, whose name I 
cannot recall, but I think was Inger- 
soll, though I would not pretend to be 
positive. I think the official records 
show a total of nearly fourteen thous- 
and deaths in Andersonville. All the 
evidence attainable both from Fedei-- 
al and Confederate sources prove that 
abo'ut one third of all the men who 
entered the gates of Andersonville 
died there, and when we come to add 
to that number those who died in 
other prisons, and on the way home, 
and whose death is directly traceable 
to that prison, we will find that fully 
one-half of the forty-five thousand 
Andersonville prisoners never 
reached home. 

If the king of Denmark could ex- 
claim, "0, my offense is rank, it 



smells to heaven," what shall we say 
of the men who are guilty of the bar- 
barities of Andersonville ? How far 
will their offense smell ? By a fair 
computation more than twenty 
thousand men were, — 
"Cut ofE even in the blossom of their sins, 
Unhouseled, disappointed, unanel'd; 
No reckoning made, but sent to their account 
With all their imperfections on their heads : 
O, horrible ! O, horrible ! most horrible !" 

Rest comrades, rest in your graves 
on the sandy hillside of Anderson- 
ville. The dank and tlie mould have 
consumed your bodies and they have 
returned to the dust from whence 
they came; but a day of reckoning 
win surely come. When the last 
trump shall somid and the dead shall 
come forth from their graves, and 
stand before tlie Great White Throne, 
where will your murderers be foimd ? 
Surely they will call upon the rocks 
and mountains to fall on them and 
hide them them from the face of 
Him who sitteth upon the Throne 
and judgeth thi^ Earth in righteous- 
ness. 

It is impossible for any person 
endowed with the common feelings 
and instincts of humanity to under- 
stand, much less to explain, the char- 
acter of Windei- and Wirz. How any 
persoTi in this enlightened age could 
1)6 guilty of the cruelties and barbar- 
ities practiced by those two ghouls 
surpass; all attempts at explanatiDU. 
I am of the opinion that the majority 
of the people of the South were igno- 
rant of the full extent of the horrors 
of the Southern Military Prisons. I 
am led to this conclusion by the fact, 
that, except upon the questions of 
slavery and war, they were a kind 
and generous hearted people, generally 
speaking, as much so,at least, as any 
Community of people of like extent. 
And for the further reason that not 
many of them had access to the inside 
of those prisons, and they would 
naturally believe the report of inter- 
ested Confederates, sooner than the 
reports of interested Federals, partic- 
ularly, as they had no intercourse 
with iirisoners themselves, except in 
isolated cases. And still further, 
all escaped prisoners, who were re- 



62 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



captured and returned to prison spoke 
highly of the kind treatment of the 
middle and upper classes, only com- 
plaining of the treatment of the low- 
er classes or "Clay Eaters." But 
somebody knew of these barbarities 
and cruelties and somebody was re- 
sponsible foi- Winder and Wirz hold- 
ing their positions, and that after a 
full investigation and report upon the 
subject by competent men. That 
SOMEBODY was Jeff Davis and his 
cabinet. 

The members of tlie Confederate 
Congress were aware of the treat- 
ment of Federal prisoners and some 
of the members of that congress 
cried out against it. in their places. 
But Jeff Davis ruled the South with a 
rod of iron. He was the head and 
front, the great rei)it'sentative uf the 
doctrine of States Iliglits, which, in- 
terpreted by Soutiiein Statesmen, 
meant the right of a state tu separate 
itself from tiie Gener;il Government, 
peaceably if possible, '-y force of arms 
if need be. And yet wiien Governor 
Brown, of Georgia, carried this doc- 
trine to its logical conclusion by 
withdrawing the Georgia troops from 
the Confederate armies, to repel the 
invasion of Sherman and harvest a 
crop for the use of his army, Davis, 
in public speeches, intimated that 
Governor Brown was a traitor. 

President Davis and liis cabinet 
knew of the atrocities of Winder and 
Wirz, and their ilk, and connived at 
them by keeping the i)erpetrators in 
place and power. Winder was a ren- 
egade Baltimorean who had received 
a military education at the expense 
of the United States government, but 
being too cowardly to accept a posi- 
tion in the field where his precious 
carcass would be exposed to danger, 
he accepted from his intimate friend, 
Jeff Davis, the office of Provost Mar- 
shal General, in which position he 
was a, scourge and a curse to the 
rebels themselves. Becoming too 
obnoxious to the people of Rich- 
mond, Davis, at last, appointed him 
Commissary General of prisoners, in 
wliich capacity he had charge of all 
the Federal prisoners east of the 



Mississippi river. 

The antecedents of Wirz are not 
known. McElroy, who has investi- 
gated the subject of Southern Prisons 
deeper than any man of my knowl- 
edge, has arrived at the conclusion 
that he was probably a clerk in a 
store before the war of the Rebellion. 
He arrives at his conclusion logically, 
for he asserts that Wirz could count 
more than one hundred. 

That Davis and his cabinet knew of 
the terrible treatment bestowed upon 
the Federal prisoners at Anderson- 
ville, we have abundant pntof. The 
following extract from the report of 
Colonel D. T. Chandler, of the Rebel 
War Department, who was sent to 
inspect Anderson ville, was copied 
from "Andersonville." The report 
is of date August 5th, 1864. and is as 
follows: "My duty requires me re- 
spectfully to recommend a change in 
the officer in command of the post, 
Brigadier General John H. Winder, 
and the substitution in his place of 
some one who unites both energy and 
good judgment with some feelings of 
humanity and consideration for the 
welfare and comfort as far as is con- 
sistent with their safe keeping of the 
vast numl)er of unfortunates placed 
under his control; some one who, at 
least,will not advocate deliberate- 
ly, and in cold Idood, the propriety of 
leaving them in their present condi- 
tion until their number is sufficiently 
reduced by death to make the pres- 
ent arrangements suffice for their 
accomodation, and who will not con- 
sider it a matter of self laudation and 
boasting that he has never been in- 
side of the stockade — a place the 
horrors oi which it is difficult to 
describe, and which is a disgrace 
TO CIVILIZATION — the condition of 
which he might l)y the exercise of 
a little energy and judgment, even 
with the limited means at his com- 
mand, have considerably improved." 

In his examination touching this 
report. Colonel Chandler says: 

"I noticed that General Winder 
seemed very indifferent to the wel- 
fare of the prisoners, indisposed to do 
anything, or to do as much as I 



I 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



63 



thought he ought to do, to alleviate 
their sufEeriugs. I remonstrated with 
him as well as I could, and he used 
that language which I reported to 
the Department with reference to it 
— the language stated in the report. 
When I spoke of the mortality exist- 
ing among the prisoners, and pointed 
out to him tlaat the sic]\ly season was 
coming on, and that it must neces- 
sarily increase unless something was 
done for their relief — the swamp, for 
instance, drained, proper food fur- 
nished, and in better quality, and 
other sanitary suggestions which I 
made to him — he replied to me that 
he thought it was better to see half 
of them die than to take care of the 
men." 

This report proves two points. First 
that we had been living in Anderson- 
ville during the healthy season, God 
save the mark, and second that Jeff 
Davis knew of the situation through 
his War Minister. But Davis was in 
favor of having the prisoners receive 
the terrible treatment to which they 
were subjected. He had, through his 
Commissary General of Prisoners, 
made demands upon the Federal 
Government in the matter of the ex- 
change of prisoners, which no govern- 
ment possessing any self respect 
could entertain. He demanded an 
exchange of prisoners in bulk, that is, 



the Federal Government to give all 
the Confederate prisoners it held in 
exchange for all the Federal prison- 
ers the Confederate Government 
held. The unfairness of such a propo- 
sition w^ill be readily seen when the 
reader is informed that at that time 
the Federals held al)out twice as 
many prisoners as did the Confed- 
erates. 

The Federal proposition was to 
exchange man for man and rank for 
rank. To this the Davis Government 
would not accede. Then followed the 
terrors of Andersonville and Florence 
of which hell itself in its palmiest 
days could not furnish a duplicate. 

I am well aware that I have not 
expressed tlie same opinion as other 
authors, ex-prisoners, upon the subject 
of the complicity of the whole people 
of the South in these prison horrors, 
but the most of these authors wrote 
a short time subsequent to the close 
of the war, and while their blood was 
still hot upon the subject; and I con- 
fess that it has taken nearly a quar- 
ter of a century for my blood to cool 
sufficiently to arrive at the conclu- 
sions I have expressed in this chapter 
and which I candidly believe are 
correct. 

To my comrades who were prison- 
ers let me say, our present motto is: 

"FIAT JUSTITIA, UVAT COELITM." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



GOOD BYE ANDERSONVILLE. 

As related in the preceding chapter 
the fall of Atlanta, and the fear of 
rescue had obliged the Confederates 
to remove the prisoners from Ander- 
son ville to a safer place. 

On the 11th of September the 
detachment to which I belonged was 
ordered out. We gladly left the pen 
and saw the ponderous gates close 
behind us. No matter to us where 
we went, we believed we had nothing 
to lose and much to gain. If we were 
to be exchanged, which we doubted, 
then good bye to all these terrible 
scenes of want and suffering. If 
another prison pen was our destina- 
tion, then we hoped it would not be 
so foul and disease laden as the one 
we left, and in any case we had left 
Winder and Wirz and we knew that 
though we were to rake the infernal 
regions with a fine comb, we could 
not find worse jailors. AVith thoughts 
like these running. through our minds 
we dragged our weak cind spiritless 
bodies to the station, where we got 
into a train of freight cars as best we 
could. Our train was headed toward 
Macon and there was much specula- 
tion as to our destination. Somehow 
a rumor had got into circulation that 
a cartel of exchange had been agreed 
upon by the commissioners of the 
two governments and that Savannah 
was to be the point of exchange. But 
we had been deceived so many times 
that we had taken a deep and -solemn 
vow to not believe anything in ex- 
change until we were safely trans- 
ferred to our own lines; and this vow 
we kept inviolate. 

Soon after passing Macon we en- 
tered the territory over which Stone- 
man's Cavalry had raided a few weeks 
before. Burned railroad trains and 



depots marked the line of his march. 
At one place where our train stopped 
for wood and water one of the guards 
was kind enough to allowed some of 
the men to get off the train and 
secure a lot of tin sheets which had 
covered freight cars prior to Stone- 
man's visit. These sheets of tin were 
afterward made into pails and square 
pans by a tinner who was a member 
of an Illinois regiment, with no other 
tools than a railroad spike and a 
block of wood. 

Two brothers, members of an Indi- 
ana regiment, and coopers by trade, 
made a large number of wooden 
buckets, or"piggins" while in Ander- 
sonville, and their kit of tools con- 
sisted of a broken pocket knife and 
a table knife, supplemented by bor- 
rowing our saw knife. With a table 
knife or a railroad spike and a billet 
of wood, we would work up the 
toughest sour gum, or knottiest pitch 
pine stick of wood which could be 
procured in the Confederacy. Time 
was of no consequence, we had an 
overstocked market in that commod- 
ity and anything that would serve to 
help rid ourselves of the surplus was 
a blessing. 

Time solved the question of our 
destination. We went to Augusta 
again so that Savannah was out of 
the question. Then we crossed over 
into South Carolina, after which the 
point was raised whether it was to 
be Columbia or Charleston. Many of 
us were of the opinion that Charles- 
ton was the point and that we were 
to be placed under fire of our own 
guns, as many prisoners had been 
heretofore, the rebels hoping thereby 
to deter our forces from firing into 
the city. Time passed and we 
arrived at Branchville. Here is the 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



65 



junction of the Columbia road with 
the Augusta and Charleston 
road, we took the Charles- 
ton track and arrived in Charleston 
about eleven o'clock p. m having 
been two days on the road. 

After leaving the cars we were 
formed in line, and, as we were 
marching away from the depot, a 
huge shell from one of Gilmore's 
guns exploded in an adjoining block. 
We were getting close to "God's coun- 
try," only a shell's flight lying between 
us and the land of the Stars and 
Stripes. We were marched just out 
of the city and camped on the old 
Charleston race track. 

In the morning we were allowed to 
go for water, accompanied by guards. 
Before night all the wells in the 
vicinity were exhausted, and we 
were obliged to resort to well digging 
for a supply. Fortunately we fouud 
water at a depth of only four feet. 
The water was slightly brackish, but 
as we had been kept on short rations 
of salt it was rather agreeable tliaii 
otherwise. Before dark there were 
more tlian fifty wells dug in camp and 
we had water in abundance. 

Day after day brought train load 
after train load of prisoners from 
Andersonville until there were about 
seven thousand prisoners in camp at 
this place. There was no stockade, 
no fence, nothing but a living wall of 
guards around us, and that living 
wall of infantrymen aided and abet- 
ted by a healthy, full gntwn battery 
of artillery, that was all. 

Our rations here were of fair qual- 
ity 'out small in quantity, consisting of 
a pint of corn meal, a little sorghum 
syrup and a tea spoonful of salt once 
in two days. Meat of any kind was 
not issued, from tliis time on it was re- 
legated to the historic past. The weath- 
er was pleasant, the days not too hot 
and the nights not too cool. 
About nine o'clock a sea breeze 
would spring up whicli felt to us, 
after having lived in the furnace-like 
atmosphere of Andersonville, like a 
breeze from the garden of the Gods. 
About nine o'clock in the evening a 
land breeze would set in and would 



blow until sunrise then die away to 
give place to the sea breeze. I used to 
sit up till midnight drinking in the 
delightful air and watching the track 
of the great shells thrown by the 
"Swamp Angel" battery. Gilmore 
gave Charleston no rest day nor niglit. 
The "Hot bed of Secession" got a 
most unmerciful pounding. The 
whole of tlie lower part of the city 
was a mass of ruins, the upper part 
was then i-eceiving tlie attention of 
our batteries on James Island. It 
was a grand sight at night to watch 
the little streak of fire from the fuse 
of those three hundred pound shells 
as it rose higher and higher to- 
ward the zenith and having reached 
the highest point of the arc, to watch 
it as it sped onward and downward 
until suddenly a loud explosion told 
that its time was expired and the 
sharp fragments were hurled with an 
increased velocity down into the de- 
voted city. Sometimes a shell would 
not explode until it had made its full 
journey and landed among the build- 
ings or in the streets and theii havoc 
and destructicui ensued. The most of 
the people lived in bombproois. which 
protected them from the fragments 
of the shells which exploded in the 
air. but were not proof against those 
which exploded after striking. 

A little epis(Kle occurred one day 
that created quite a panic among both 
prisoners and guards Suddenly and 
without warning, a large solid shot 
came rolling and tum>iling througli 
camp, from the north; this was fol- 
lowed by another, and then another. 
This was getting serious. What the 
Dickens was the matter '? Where did 
these shots come from ? were ques- 
tions tliat any and all of us, could and 
did ask, but none could answer. But. 
in this case, the rebel suard and offi- 
cers, were in danger as well as Yanks, 
and a courier was dispatched in hot 
haste to inquire into the why and 
wherefore. It turned out that a rel)el 
gunboat, on the Cooper River, was 
practicing at a target and we were 
getting the benefit of it. 

Here at Charleston we were on his- 
toric ground. Just a few miles to the 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



e;i.st of us Colonel Moultrie defended 
a palmetto fort manned by five hund- 
red brave and loyal South Carolinans, 
against the combined land and naval 
forces of Sir Henry Clinton, and Sir 
Peter Parker, on the 28th of June 
1776, and with his twenty-six cannons 
compelled the fleet to retire. There 
upon the palmetto bastion of old 
Fort Moultrie, the brave yo uig Ser- 
geant Jasper supported the Stars and 
Stripes under a terrible fire, and 
earned for himself an undying fame. 
Here and in this vicinity. Moultrie, 
Pickens, Piiickney, Lee, Green, Lin- 
coln and Marion earned a reputation 
which will last as long as American 
history shall enduie. Hut. alas, here 
too, is material for a history which 
does not reflect much credit on the 
descendants of those brave and loyal 
men. South Carolina was the first 
State to adopt an ordinance of Seces- 
sion, Nov 20th, I860. 

Here in Charleston Harbor, on the 
9th of January 1861, the descendants 
of those revolution.! ly lieroes. from 
the embrazures of fort Moultrie, and 
Castle Pinckney. fired upon the Star 
of the West, a United States vessel 
sent with supplies for the brave An- 
derson, who was cooped up within the 
walls of Fort Sumter. From these 
same forts, on tlie I2th of April, was 
fired the guns which compelled the 
surrender of Fort Sumter, and was 
the beginning of liostilities in the 
War of the Rebellion. And all this 
trouble had grown out of a political 
doctrine promulgated by an eminent 
South Carolinan, John C. Calhoun. 

But with all their bad reputation as 
Secessionists, the South Carolinans 
treated us with more kindness than 
did the citizens of any other States. 
I never heard a tantalizing or insult- 
ing word given by a South Carolina 
citizen or soldier to a prisoner. In the 
matter of low meanness, the Georgia 
Crackers and Clay Eaters earned the 
blue ribbon. 

On the 1st of October the detach- 
ment to which I belonged, was march- 
ed to the cars, and we were sent to 
Florence, one hundred miles north of 
Charleston on the road to Columbia. 



On our route, we had passed over 
ground made sacred by Revolutionary 
struggles. At Monk's Corners, the 14th 
of April 1780, a British force defeat- 
ed an American force. In the swamps 
of the Santee and Pedee Rivers Gen- 
eral Francis Marion hid his men, and 
from them he made his fierce raids 
upon tories and British. Marion is 
called a "partisan leader," in the old 
histories, but I suspect that in 
this year of grace, he would be 
called a "Bushwacker,"or"Guerrilla" 
leader. It makes a good deal of diff- 
erence which side men are fighting 
on, about the name they are called. 
We arrived at the Florence Stockade 
in the afternoon and were marched in 
and assigned our position in the north- 
east corner, the entrance being on the 
west side. 

The Florence Stockade was about 
two or three miles below Florence, 
and half or three-quarters of a mile 
east of the railroad. It was built up- 
on two sides of a small stream which 
ran through it from north to south, 
was nearly square in shape, and con- 
tained ten or twelve acres of land. It 
was built of rough logs set in the 
ground and was sixteen or eighteen 
feet higl>. There was no such dead 
line as at Andersonsville, a shallow 
ditch marking the limits. The great- 
est number of prisoners confined here 
duriug the time of my imprisonment, 
was eleven thousand. In some res- 
pects our situation was better than at 
Andersonville. We had new ground 
upon which to live. We were rid of 
the terrible filth and stench, we were 
not so badly crowded, and we had 
more wood with which to cook our 
food. 

The Post Commandant, Lieuten- 
ant Colonel Iverson, of the 5th Geor- 
gia, was an easy going, but not alto- 
gether bad man, except that he was 
possessed of an ungovernable temper, 
and w^hen irritated, would commit 
acts of which he was, no doubt, as- 
hamed when his pulse assumed a nor- 
mal condition. Lieutenant Barrett, 
Adjutant of the 5th Georgia, was to 
Florence what Wirz was to Ander- 
sonville. He was a red headed fiery 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



67 



tempered, cruel, and vindictive speci- 
men of the better educated class of 
Southerners. It seemed to be his de- 
light to to torture and maltreat the 
prisoners. If there was a single re- 
deeming trait in his character, tlie un- 
fortunate men who were under his 
care, never by any chance stumbled 
onto it. His favorite punishment was 
to tie the offender up by the thumbs 
so tightly that his toes barely touched 
the ground, and have him in this con- 
dition for an hour or two at a time. 
The tortures of such a punishment 
were in lescribable. The victim would 
suffer the tortures of the damned, and 
when letdown would have to he car- 
ried to his quarters by his comrades. 

The i)risoiiers were organized into 
squads of twenty, these into compan- 
ies of a hundred, and these into de- 
tachments of a thousand. As stated 
Vjefore my detachment was assigned a 
position in the northeast corner of the 
Stockade. When we arrived there 
was plenty of wood, snail })oles. and 
brush in the Stockade, and our tirst 
work after selecting our ground, was 
to secure an abundant supply. 

My old "pard" Rouse, had died at 
Charleston, Ole Gilbert belonged to 
another detachment and did not come 
in the saaie train load with uie. so I 
joined Joe Eaton, Wash. Hays and 
Roselle Hull, of uiy regiment, in con- 
structing' a slielter, or house, if you 
please. We first set crotches in the 
ground and Liid a strong pole on them, 
then we leaned other poles on each 
side against this pole in the form of a 
letter A. This was the frame work 
of our house, which, as will be seen, 
consisted entirely of roof. On this 
frame work we placed brush, cover- 
ing the brush witli leaves, and the 
whole with a heavy layer of dirt. 
This was an exceedingly laborious job 
on account of the lack of suitable 
tools. Our poles were cut with a very 
dull hatchet and our digging done witii 
tin plates. After we had constructed 
a shelter, our next work was to wall 
up the gables. This was done with 
clay made up into adobes. We could 
not build more than a foot in a day 
as we were obliged to wait for our 



walls to dry sufficiently to bear their 
own weight. We had taken great 
pains to make a warm rain proof hut, 
as we had arrived at the conclusion 
that we were destined to remain in 
prison until the close of the war. 

Those prisoners who arrived later 
were not so fortunate in the matter 
of wood. The early settleis had 
taken possession of all of that com- 
modity leaving others to look out for 
themselves. But the later arrivals 
made haste to secure poles for the 
purpose of erecting their tents and 
huts, that is, those who had blankets 
to spare for roofs; but many were 
compelled to dig diminutive caves in 
the banks whicli marked the boundary 
of tlie narrow valley through which 
ran the little stream of water. 

Wood was procured from the im- 
mense pine forests in the vicinity. 
Details of our own numbers, chopped 
the wood, and others carried it on 
their shoulders a distance of half to 
three quarters of a mile, receiving as 
compensation an extra ration of 
food. In the matter of wood Iverson 
was more humane tlian was Winder, 
but in the matter of rations it was 
the same old story, just enough to 
keep soul and body together, provided 
a pint of corn meal, two spoonfuls of 
sorgham syrup and a half teaspoonful 
of salt daily would furnish sufficient 
adhesive power to accomplish that 
result. 

There was rather better hospital ac- 
comniodations here for the sick, than 
at Andersonvillcbut at the best it was 
miserably poor and insufficient. The 
worst cases had been left behind, 
but the stockade was soon full of men 
so sick as to be unable to care for them- 
selves. The terrible treatment atAn- 
dersonville was telling on the men af- 
;,er they had changed to a more healthy 
location, and into less filthy surround- 
ings. 

Soon the fall rains set in and the 
cold winds, which penetrated to our 
very marrow tlirough the rags with 
wiiich we were but partly covered, 
warned us that winter was approach- 
ing. We tried hard to keep up our 
courage amidst all these discourag- 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



ing circumstances, but it was a sick- 
ly, weakly sort of courage. Cheer- 
ful, we could not be, even the most 
religiously inclined were sad and 
despondent. I am convinced that 
cheerfulness depends and must de- 
pend on outward circumstances as well 
as on an inward state of mind. Why 
not? We were men not angels, mater- 
ial beings, not spirits; we were sub- 
ject to the same appetites and pas- 
sions to which we, and others are 
subject, under better circumstances. 
Starvation, privation, misery and tor- 
ture had not purged from us the long- 
ings, the hungerings and thirstings 
after the necessaries, the convenien- 
ces, yes, the luxuries of life, but on 
the contrary, had increased them ten 
fold. How was this to terminate? 



Would our Government set aside the 
military policy of the Commander of 
the army, and take a more humane 
view of the question? Would the 
Confederates, already driven to ex- 
tremes to furnish supplies for their 
own men, at length yield and give us 
up, to save expense? or, must we 
still remain to satisfy the insatiate 
greed of the Moloch of war? were 
questions we could and did ask our- 
selves and each other, but there was 
found no man so wise as to be able 
to answer them. Time, swift-footed 
and fleeting, to the fortunate, but 
laggard, and slow, to us, could alone 
solve these questions, and after hours 
of discussion, to Time we referred 
them. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



NAKED AND COLD AND HUN- 
GRY.— SHERMA^Q . 

" 'Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never 

reach the coast!' 
So the saucy rebels said, and t'was a handsome 

boast, 
Had they not forgot alas ! to reckon with the 

host, 
While we were marching through Georgia. 
So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and 

her train, 
Sixty nales in latitude three hundred to the 

main; 
Treason fled before us, for resistance was In 

vain, 
While we were marching through Georgia." 

During the Summer, and up to the 
last of October, the condition of our 
clothing had been more a matter of 
indecency than of actual sufferings. 
But when the fall rains set in and 
the cold winds began to blow, then 
we felt the need of good clothing. 
About this time a very limited supply 
of clothing was issued to the more 
destitute. This was some of the 
clothing which the United States Gov- 



ern ment furnished for the benefit of 
the prisoners, but which was of more 
benefit to the rebels than to us. It 
is very clear that our Government 
was a victim of misplaced confidence 
in sending supplies of food and cloth- 
ing through the rebel lines for our 
benefit. These supplies were mostly 
used by the rebels for their own 
benefit, and our Government aided 
the rebellion by that much. 

My clothing was old when I was 
taken prisoner, having been worn 
through the Chickamauga campaign, 
and while I was in the hospital at 
Danville some one had, without my 
consent, traded me worse clothing, so 
that by this time I was a spectacle 
for men perhaps, but hardly for 
angels and women. Shirt, I had none, 
my coat was out at the elbows and 
was minus buttons, my pants were 
worn to shreds, fore and aft, and 
looked like bifurcated dish rags. My 
drawers had been burned at Ander- 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IX DIXIE. 



sonville with their rich burden of 
lice, while my shoes looked like the 
breaking up of a hard winter, and yet 
I was too much of a dude to get 
clothes from Barrett. Bow the cold 
winds did play hide and seek through 
my rags; how my skeleton frame did 
shiver, and my scurvy loosened teeth 
rattle and clatter, as "gust followed 
gust more furiously" through the tat- 
tered remains of what was once a 
splendid uniform. Evidently 'some- 
thing had got to be done or I should, 
like a ship in a storm, be scudding 
around with bare poles. My first 
remedy was patching. With all my 
varied and useful accomplishments, 
1 had become quite expert with a 
needle, (a small sized darning needle) 
and I felt perfectly conpetent to fix 
u]) my unmentionables, provided I 
could find patches and thread. I was 
in the condition of the Irishman 
who wanted to '-borry tobaccy and a 
pipe, I have a matcli of me own,sorr," 
but those to whom I applied for 
patches and thread, were like an Irish- 
man of my company by the name of 
Mike Callahan. I went to him one 
day as he sat suioking liis "dhudeen." 
t?aid I, "Mike, can you give me a 
chew of tobacco?" "I cannot sorr," 
puff-pulf"I don't use it myself. ""Well 
have you got any smoking tobacco?" 
said I. "I have sorr," puff-puff-pufl- 
joost phat will do nieself," was his 
reply. After looking around for a 
time, I found an old oil clolh knap- 
sack which I cut up into appropriate 
patches. Ole Gilbert had a piece of 
home-made cotton cloth, this we 
raveled and used for thread with 
which to patch my pants. This shift 
answered to keep out the wind, but 
when I sat down. Oh my ! it seemed 
like sitting on an iceberg and holding 
the North Pole in my lap. 

After the prisoners had all arrived 
at Florence, I changed my quarters 
to those of five comrades of 
my own company, Gilbert, 
Berk, Gaffney, Webster and Best. 
We had very fair quarters and were 
provided with two blankets for the 
six. One day as we were talking over 
the subject of exchange, we all came 



to the conclusion that we were in for 
it during the war, and I was instruct- 
ed to write to the Wisconsin Sanitary 
Commission for clothing and other 
supplies. The letter was duly re- 
ceived and was published in the 
Milwaukee Sentinel. The following 
is a copy of the letter: 

"Florence, S. C.,Oct. 8th,1864. 

Secretary of Wis. State Sanitary 
Commission. 

Sir: — There are six members of the 
10th Wis. Infantry here together, who 
were captured at the battle of Chicka- 
mauga. We are destitute of clothing, 
and as defenders of our country, we 
apply to you for aid, hoping you will be 
prompt in relieving, in a measure, 
our necessities. Please send us a box 
containing blankets, underclothing, 
shirts and socks in particular, and we 
stand very much in need of shoes; but 
I don't know as they are in your line 
of business. 

"We would also like stationery, 
combs, knives, forks, spoons, tin cups, 
plates and a small sized camp kettle, 
as our rations are issued to us raw; 
also thread and needles. We all have 
the scurvy more or less and I think 
dried fruit would help us very much 
by the acid it contains, — you cannot 
send us medicine as that is contra- 
band. We would like some tobacco 
and reading matter. If there is any- 
thing more that you can send, it will 
be very acceptable. 

"We should not apply to you were 
we not compelled, and did we not 
know that you are the destitute 
soldiers' friend. You will please 
receive this in the same spirit in 
which it is sent, and answer accor- 
dingly, and you will have the satis- 
faction of feeling that you have done 
something to relieve the wants of 
those who went out at the commence- 
ment of the war, to vindicate the 
rights of our country. 

Direct to Wm. W. Day 
and Joseph Eaton, prisoners of war, 
Florence, S. C, via. Flag of Truce, 
Hilton Head. 

Yours, &c., 

Wm. W. Day. 

P. S. I foi-got to mention soap — a 



70 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



very essential article." 

At the same time I wrote to my 
wife in Wisconsin and to my brother 
in New York, for a box but instruct- 
ed them that if there was any pros- 
pect of an immediate exchange, they 
were not to send them. I believe 
some of the other boys sent home for 
boxes also. We knew that the chances 
were very much against our ever 
seeing the boxes if sent, as we knew 
that many boxes sent to Anderson- 
ville were kept and their contents 
used by the rebel guards, yet I hoped 
that out of the three I might possibly 
get one. When the letters sent to my 
wife and brother reached their des- 
tination, they commenced the pre- 
paration of boxes, but before they 
were complete news of exchange 
reached them and the boxes were not 
sent. But during the spring of 1865, 
after I had settled in Minnesota, and 
after the capture of Richmond. I 
received a letter from the General in 
command of our forces, at that place, 
informing me that there was a box 
there directed to me and asking for 
instructions as to its disposal. I 
replied to him that it was a box sent 
to me by the Wisconsin Sanitary 
Commission, and was intended for 
me as a soldier, that I was now a 
civilian, and had no claim on it, and 
directed him to turn it over to the 
hospital. 

Right here I wish to express my 
appreciation of the Sanitary Commis- 
sion. In all the loyal States they did 
a grand work of mercy and charity, 
ably seconding the efforts of the 
Government in caring for sick and 
destitute soldiers. In fact they per- 
formed a work which the Government 
could not perform. They furnished 
lint and bandages, canned and dried 
fruits, vegetables and luxuries of all 
descriptions for the wounded and sick 
soldiers, thus giving them to feel that 
in all their hardships and sufferings 
they were not forgotton by the kind 
loyal women of the North, God bless 
them. It was the ladies of the Sani- 
tary Commission of Milwaukee who 
established the first Soldiers' Home, 
on West Water street, and which has 



grown into the National Soldiers' 
Home near that city. They were 
ably seconded by the Christian Com- 
mission, which sent not only sui)plies 
but men and women to the field of 
war, to distribute supplies and act in 
the capacity of nurses in the hospi- 
tals. The wife of the Hon. John F. 
Potter, of the 1st Congressional Dis- 
trict, of Wisconsin, worked in the 
hospitals at Washington until she 
contracted a fever and died, as much a 
martyr for her country as any soldier 
upon the field of battle. Governor 
Harvey, of Wisconsin, lost his life at 
Pittsburg Landing, where he had 
gone to aid the wounded soldiers. 
His wife took uxi the work, thus rude- 
ly broken by her husband's death, 
and carried it on until peace came 
like a benison ui)on the land. 

All over the North, loyal men and 
women gave of their time and money 
for the relief of their Nation's de- 
fenders, and to-day deserve, and 
receive, the thanks of the "boys who 
wore the blue." 

Sometime in the month of Novem- 
ber, a rumor was circulated that an 
exchange had been agreed upon, be- 
tween the two Governments, and that 
Savannah was the point agreed upon 
for the exchange. But while we were 
hopeful that this might be true, we 
were doubtful. That story had been 
told so many times that it had become 
thin and gauzy from wear. In a few 
days, however, a lot of prisoners 
came in who reported that an ex- 
change of sick had actually been in 
progress, but that the near approach 
of Sherman's army had discontinued 
it, until another point could be agreed 
upon. 

Here was news with a vengeance. 
We had been told that Sherman 
woidd l)e annihilated, that he could 
never reach the coast, and here came 
the news that his army was not only 
all right, but was almost to the coast. 
And further that our Government 
was still making efforts for our relief. 
"Hope springs eternal in the haman 
breast," and here for the first time, 
we had reasonable grounds for hope. 

On the 25th of September General 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



71 



Hood had got into General Sherman's 
rear and started north. But Sherman 
had anticipated just such a move and 
had provided for it by sending one 
division to Chattanooga, and anotlier 
division to Home, Ga. On the 2ytli 
Sherman sent Thomas bacli to Chat- 
tanooga and afterward to Nasliville. 

General Sherman then divided his 
army into two wings. The riglit wing 
in command of General O. O.Howard, 
and the left wing in command of 
General Slocum. Hood had started 
out to return a Roland for an Oliver. 
Forrest was operating in Tennesee 
and Kentucky, and menacing the 
States north of the Ohio river. Hood's 
plan was to join him and while 
Sherman was living upon short com- 
mons in Georgia, his army would be 
reveling in the rich spoils of North- 
ern States. The idea was a good one, 
the point was to carry it out. 

On the fifth of October Hood 
destroyed a considerable length of 
railroad north of Atlanta. Sherman, 
from a high point, saw the railroad 
burning for miles. At Alatoona Gen- 
eral Corse had a small force, among 
his troops was the 4th Minnesota, 
which earned a record, in the defense 
of that mountain pass which will go 
down to the ages yet to come, in the 
history of the war. From the heights 
of Keui'saw, Sherman's signal officer 
read a dispatch, signaled from a hole 
in the block-house at Alatoona; "I 
am short a cheek bone and part of an 
ear, but we can whip all hell yet. 
Corse, 
Com'd'g." 

Tradition says that Sherman sig- 
naled "liold the fort, I am coming," 
but I believe Sherman denies this. 
At any rate, the fact that Corse did 
hold the fort, and that he knew from 
the signal corps on Kenesaw that 
Sherman was coming to his aid, gave 
rise to the thoughts tliat inspired the 
writer of the little poem, "Hold the 
fort, for I am coming." 

Sherma)! strengthened Thomas by 
sending Stanley with the 4th corps 
and ordering Schofield with the Army 
of the Ohio to report to him. On the 
2d of November General Grant 



approved Sherman's plan of the 
campaign to the sea, and on the 10th 
he started back to Atlanta. The real 
march to the sea commenced on the 
15th. Howard with the right wing 
and cavalry, went to Jonesboro and 
Milledgeville, then the capital of 
Georgia. Slocum with the left wing 
went to Stone Mountain to threaten 
Augusta. 

The people of the South became 
frantic when they found Sherman 
had cut loose. They could not divine 
his movements. He threatened one 
point and when the enemy had been 
drawn thither for its protection, he 
threatened another point. Frantic 
appeals were made for the people to 
turn out and drive the invadec from 
the soil. They took the cadets 
from the Militar>- College and added 
them to the ranks of the Militia. 
They went so far as to liberate the 
convicts from the State Prison, on 
promise that they would join the 
army. But Sherman moved along 
leisurely, at the rate of fifteen miles a 
day, burning railroad bridges and 
destroying miles upon miles of track. 
The Southern pnpers, from which we 
had received the news at Florence, 
pictured the army as in a most de- 
plorable condition. Saying the army 
was all broken up and disorganized, 
and was each man for himself, mak- 
ing his way to the sea coast to seek 
the protection of the navy. Some of 
these papers reached the North and 
the news was copied into the 
Northern papers and spread like wild- 
fire, creating a great deal of uneasi- 
ness in the minds of those who had 
friends in that army. 

General Grant, in his Memoirs, 
speaking of this matter, says: "Mr. 
Lincoln seeing these accounts, had a 
letter written asking me if I could give 
him anything that he could say to 
the loyal people that would comfort 
them. I told him there was not the 
slightest occasion for alarm; that 
with 00,000 such men as Sherman had 
with him, such a commanding officer 
as he, could not be cut oft in the open 
country. He might possibly be 
prevented from reaching the point 



72 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



he had started out to reacli, hut he 
would get through somewhere and 
would finally get to his cliosen des- 
tination; and even if worst came to 
worst he could return north. I 
heard afterwards of Mr. Lincoln's 
saying to those who would inquire 
of him as to M'hat he thought about 
the safety of Sherman's army, that 
Sherman was all right; 'Grant says 
they are safe ' with such a General, 
and that if they cannot get out where 
they want to they can crawl back 
by the hole they went in at.' " 

The right and left wings were to 
meet at Millen with the hope of lib- 
erating the prisoners at that place, 
but they failed, the prisoners having 
been previously removed, but Wheel- 
er's Rebel cavalry had a pretty 
severe engagement with the Union 
cavalry at that place which resulted 
in Wheeler's being driven toward 
Augusta, thus convincing the people 
that Augusta was the objective point. 
The army reached Savannah on the 
9th of December, and on the 10th the 
siege of that place commenced. 
On the night of the 21st the rebels 
evacuated the city and it fell into 
Sherman's hands. 

The whole march had been a pleas- 
ure excursion, when compared with 
the Atlanta campaign. The rebels 
could never muster a sufficient force 
of a quality to retard the march of 
the army. All their boasting of 
annihilation was simply wind. The 
fact was they were completely 
nonplussed, they did not know where 
he intended to go until he was within 
striking distance of Savannah. Every 
morning a squad of men from each 
command started out under command 
of an officer, and at night returned 
with wagons loaded with the best in 
the land. Hams, hogs, l)eeves, 
turkeys and chickens, sweet potatoes. 



corn meal and flour, rice and honey 
were gathered for food, and the 
bummers usually captured teams to 
haul the provisons in with. 

My friend 0. S. Crandall, of the 4th 
Minnesota, who was on this march, 
tells a joke on himself which I will 
repeat. A brother bummer by the 
nauie of Ben Sayers, had made a 
discovery of some honey while the 
two were on a picket post. Sayers 
told Crandall that if he would stand 
guard in his place he would fill his 
canteen with honey. To this Crandall 
agreed and when the relief came 
around told the officer of the guard 
that he would stand Sayers' relief. 
Sayers filled his canteen full of honey 
as agreed and all was lovely; honey 
on hard-tack, honey on dough gods, 
honey on flapjacks, wjis in Oscar's 
dreams that night as he lay peaceful- 
ly sleeping beneath the bright moon 
in southern Georgia. But the next 
day the sun came out hot and the 
honey granulated and would not 
come out. Oscar had evidently got 
a white elephant on his hands; that 
honey could not be persuaded to come 
out, and he was choking with thirst. 
Seeing a comrade with a canteen he 
thus accosted him: "Say pard, give 
me a drink." 

Tother Feller.— "Why don't you 
drink out of your own canteen?" 

Oscar. — "I can't, I've got it full of 
honey and it's candied." 

T. F. — "Why, you poor, miserable, 
innocent, blankety blanked fool, if 
you don't know any better than that 
you may go thirsty. I wont give you 
any water." 

Oscar. — "Say pard, how will you 
trade canteens?" 

T. F.— "Even." 

Oscar. — "It's a whack." 

And Oscar never got his canteen 
filled with honey again during the 
remainder of the war. 



CHAPTER XV. 



VALE DIXIE. 

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land ! 
Whose heart hath ne*er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned. 
From wandering on a foreign strand ! 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well; 
For him no Minstrel rapture swell ; 
High though his titles, proud his name. 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 
Despite those titles, power and pelf, 
The wretch, concentrated all in self. 
Living, shall forfeit all renown. 
And, doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung. 
Unwept, unhonored and unsung." 

The Lay of the last Minstrel. 
Scott. 

During the time of our stay at 
Charleston, tlie rebel offlers had made 
great efforts to induce the prisoners 
to take the oath of allegiance to the 
Confederacy, promising good treat- 
ment, good pay, good clothing, a large 
bounty and service in a bomb proof 
position in return. If men had 
stopped to think, these promises 
carried with them abundant proof of 
their own fjilsity. Where was the 
evidence of good treatment, judging 
of the future by the past I What did 
good pay and large bounties amount 
to wli en it took two hundred dollars 
of that good pay and large bounty to 
buy a pair of boots? And the good 
clothing, yes they could clothe tliem 
with the uniforms stripped from their 
dead comrades upon the battlefield or 
stolen from the supplies sent to the 
prisoners. 

But, lured by these specious prom- 
ises, about a liundred and twenty-five 
prisoners went out one day and, as 
we supposed, took the oath. They 
were marched away cityward in the 
morning, but before night they 
returned. We saluted them on their 
return with groans and hisses and 
curses. They reported that they were 



to be sent to James Island to throw up 
earth-works in front of the rebel lines. 
This they refused to do, and they 
were returned to prison. 

At Florence another effort was 
made to recruit men. The rebels 
wanted foreigners for the army, and 
artisans of all kinds particularly black- 
smiths, shoemakers, carpenters and 
machinists for their shops. Many of 
our artisans went out thinking tliey 
they would get a chance to work for 
food and clothing by simply giving 
their parole of honor they would not 
attempt to escape. But the rebs 
insisted that they must take the oath 
of allegiance. A few took the 
required oath, but most of the boys 
returned to prison, and most heartily 
anathematized the men who had the 
impudence and presumption to sup- 
pose that they would be guilty of 
taking the oath of allegiance to such 
a rotten, hell-born thing as the South- 
ern Confederacy. 

There was a great deal of discussion 
among the prisoners at the time 
about the question of the moral right 
of a man to take the oath of allegi- 
ance to save his life. It was argued 
on one side that onr government had 
left us to rot like dogs, to shift for 
ourselves and that as winter was 
coming on and there was no pros- 
pect of exchange, a man had a per- 
fect right to take the oath and save 
his life. On the other side it was 
argued that we had taken a solemn 
oath to support the government of the 
United States and not to give aid or 
comfort to any of its enemies; that 
war was hard at best, and that when 
we took the oath we knew' that im- 
prisonment was a probability just as 
much as a battle was a probability; 
that we had just as much right to 
refuse to fight and to turn traitor 



74 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



upon the battle field as we had in 
prison. 

For my own part life was dear to me 
but it was dear on account of my 
friends; and supposing I should take 
the oath and save my life; the war 
would soon be over and when peace 
came and all my comrades had 
returned to their homes, where would 
my place be? Could I ever return to 
my friends with the brand of traitor 
upon me? Never. I would die, if die 
I must; but die true to the flag I 
loved and honored, and for which I 
had suffered so long. Right here we 
adopt the prisoners' motto, "Death, 
but not dishonor." 

Soon af ler changing ray quarters I 
succeeded in securing a position on 
the police force. Another of my 
tent mates was equally fortunate, so 
we had a little extra food in our tent. 
My health had been slowing improv- 
ing ever since I left Andersonville,and 
with returning health came a grow- 
ing appetite. We resorted to all sorts 
of expedients to increase the supplies 
of our commissariat. Ole Gilbert 
was a natural mechanic and he made 
spoons from some of the tin Avhich 
he had procured near Macon; these 
were traded for food or sold for cash, 
and food purchased with the money. 
One day he traded three spoons for a 
pocket knife with an ivory faced 
handle. The ivory had been broken 
but I fished the remains of an old 
ivory fine comb out of my pockets 
and he repaired the handle of the 
knife with it. We sent it outside by 
one of the boys who had a job of 
grave digging, and who sold it for 
ten dollars. Confederate money. With 
this money we bought a bushel of 
sweet potatoes of the sutler at the 
gate, and then we resolved to fill up 
once more before we died. We baked 
each of us two large corn "flap jacks" 
eight inches across and half an inch 
thick. We then boiled a six quart 
pail full of sweet potatoes and after 
that made the pail full of coffee out 
of the bran sifted from our meal, and 
then scorched. This was equal to 
three quarts of food and drink to 
each one of us, but it only stopped 



the chinks. 

I then proposed to double the dose 
which we did, eating and drinking 
six quarts each within two hours. Of 
course it did not buist us but it start- 
ed the hoops pretty badly, and yet we 
were hungry after that. It seemed 
impossible to liold enough to satisfy 
our hunger; every nerve, and fiber 
and tissue in our whole system from 
head to foot, was crying out for food, 
and our stomachs would not hold 
enough to supply the demand, and it 
took montlis of time and untold quan- 
tities of food to get our systems back 
to normal condition. 

There are many ex-prisoners who 
claim that Florence was a worse 
prison than Andersonville. I did not 
think so at the time I was there, but 
those who remained there during the 
winter no doubt suffered more than 
they did at Andersonville, on account 
of the cold weather; but at the best 
it was a terrible place, worthy to be 
credited to the hellish regions of Jeff 
Davis and Winder, aided by the fiend 
Barrett. At one time Barrett, with 
some recruiting oflicers, came into 
prison accompanied by a little dog. 
Some of the prisoners, it is supposed, 
beguiled the dog away and killed him; 
for this act Barrett deprived the 
whole of the prisoners of tlieir rations 
for two days and a half. 

About the 4th of December some 
surgeons came in and selected a 
thousand men from the worst cases 
which were not in the hospital. It 
was said thev were to be sent through 
our lines on parole. Then commenced 
an earnest discussion upon the situa- 
tion. My comi'ades and I thought 
we were getting too strong to pass 
muster. How we wished we had not 
improved so much since leaving 
Andersonville. We were getting so 
fat we would actually make a shad- 
ow, that is if we kept our clothes 
buttoned up. After considering the 
question pro and con we came to the 
conclusion that we had better not 
build up any hopes at present. If we 
were so lucky as to get away, all 
right. If not we would have no 
shattered hopes to mourn over. 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IX DIXIE. 



75 



On the 6th another thousand was 
selected and sent away. This looked 
like business; this was no camp 
ninior started by nobody knew who, 
but here were surgeons actually 
selecting feeble men and sending 
them through tlie gates, and they did 
not return. 

The 8th came and in the afternoon 
the 9th thousand was called up for 
inspection. I went out to the dead 
line where the inspection was going 
on to see what my chances probably 
were. The surgeons were sending 
out about every tliird or fourth man. 
The 9th and 10th thousand were in- 
spected and then came the 11th, to 
which I belonged. I went to my 
tent and told the boys I was going to 
try my chmices, "but," I added, "keep 
supper waiting." I took my haver- 
sack with me, leaving my blanket, 
which had fallen to me as heir of 
Rouse, and went to the dead line and 
fell in with my hundred,the 8th. After 
waiting imi)atiently for a while I told 
Harry J^owell, the Sergeant of my 
lumdred, that I was going down the 
line to see what our cliances were. 
It was getting almost dark, the sur- 
geons were getting in a hurry to 
complete their task and were taking 
every other man. I went back and 
told Harry I was going out, I felt it 
in my bones. Tliis was the first time 
I had entertained a good healthy, well 
developed hope, since I arrived in 
Richmond, more tlian a year previous. 

The 6th hundred was called, then 
the 7th and at last the 8th. We 
marched down to our allotted position 
with limbs trembling with excite- 
ment. That surgeon standing there 
so unconcernedly, held my fate in his 
liands. He was soon to say the word 
that M^ould restore me to "God's 
Country," to home and friends, or 
send me back to weary months of 
imprisonment. 

My turn came. "What ails you?" 
the surgeon asked. 

"1 have had diarrhea and scurvy 
for eight months," was my reply, and • 
I pulled up the legs of my pants to 
show him my limbs, whicli were 
almost as black as a stove. He passed 



his hands over the emaciated 
remains of what had once been my 
arms and asked, "When is your time 
of service out?" "It was out the 10th 
of last October," said I. 

"You can go out." 

That surgeon was a stranger to me. 
I never saw him before that day nor 
have I seen him since, but upon the 
tablet of my memory I have written 
him down as friend. 

I did not wait for a second per- 
mission but started for the gate. 

Jiist as I was going out some of my 
comrades saw me and shouted, "Bully 
for you Bill; you're a lucky boy!" and 
I believed I was. After passing 
outside I went to a tent where two 
or three clerks were busy upon rolls 
and signed the parole. Before I left 
Harry Lowell joined me and together 
we went into camp where rations of 
flour were issued to us. After dark 
Harry and I stole past the guard and 
went down to the grave diggers' quar- 
ters where we weie provided with a 
supper of rice, sweet potatoes and 
biscuits. I have no doubt that to-day 
I should tui'u up my nose at the 
cooking of that dish, for the sweet 
potatoes and rice were stewed and 
baked together, but I did, not then. 
After supper John Burk baked our 
flour into biscuits, using cob ashes in 
the place of soda; after which we 
stole back into camp. 

Not a wink of sleep did we get that 
night. AVe had eaten too much sup- 
per for one thing, and besides our 
prison day seemed to be almost ended. 
We were marched to the railroad 
next morning, but the wind was 
blowing so hard that we were not 
sent away, as the vessels could not 
run in the harbor at Charleston. 

.Just before night a ration of corn 
meal was issued to us and I have that 
ration yet. About ten o'clock that 
night we were ordered on board the 
cars and away we went to Charleston, 
where we arrived soon after daylight. 
We debarked from the cars and were 
marched into a vacant warehouse on 
the dock, where we remained until 
two o'clock p. m. when we were 
marched on board a ferry boat. The 



76 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



bells jingled, the wheels began to 
revolve and churn up the water and 
we are speeding down the harbor. 
All seems lovely as a June morning, 
when lo, we are ordered to heave to 
and tie up to the dock. We were 
marched off from the boat and up a 
street. It looked as though the 
Charleston jail was our destination, 
instead of that long wished for God's 
Country. 

It seemed that the last train load 
had not been delivered on account of 
the high winds, and that we were to 
wait our turn. But we were soon 
countermarched to the boat and this 
time we left Charleston for good and 
all. 

My thoughts were busy as our boat 
was steadily plowing her way down 
the harbor to the New York, our 
exchange commissioner's Flag Ship, 
which lay at anchor about a mile 
outside of Fort Sumter. To my left 
and rear Fort Moultrie and Castle 
Pinkney stood in grim silence. Away 
to the front and left, upon that low, 
sandy beach, are some innocent 
looking mounds, but those mounds are 
the celebrated "Battery Bee'' on 
Sullivans Island, To my right are 
the ruins of the lower part of Charles- 
ton. Away out to the front and 
right stands Fort Sumter in "dim and 
lone magnificence." To the right of 
Fort Sumter is Morris Island and still 
farther out to sea is James Island. 
What a scene to one who has had a 
deep interest in the history of his 
country from the time of its organi- 
zation up to and including the war of 
the rebellion. Here the revolution- 
ary fathers stood by their guns to 
maintain the independence of the 
Colonies, Here their descendants had 
fired the first gun in a rebellion 
inaugurated to destroy the Union 
established by the valor, and sealed 
with the blood of their sires. Mis- 
guided, traitorous sons of brave, loyal 
fathers. Such thoughts as these 
passed through my mind as we 
steamed down the harbor to the New 
York, but it never occurred to me 
that the waters through which our 
boat was picking her way, was filled 



with deadly torpedoes, and that the 
least deviation from the right course 
would bring her in contact with one 
of these devilish engines and we 
would be blown out of water. 

But look! what is that which is 
floating so proudly in the breeze at 
the peak of that vessel? 
" 'Tis the Star Spangled Banner, oh! 

long may it wave. 
O'er the land of the free and the 
home of the brave." 

Yes it is the old Stars and Stripes, 
and just underneath them on the 
deck of that vessel is "God's 
Country," that we have dreamed of 
and wished for so many long weary 
months. 

My friends, do you wonder that the 
tears ran unbidden down our wan and 
ghastly cheeks? That with our weak 
lungs and feeble voices we tried to 
send a welcome of cheers and a tiger 
to tliat dear old flag? It was not a 
loud, strong cheer, such as strong 
men send up in the hour of victory 
and triumph; no the rebels had done 
their work too well for that, but it 
was from away down in the bottom 
of our hearts, and from the same 
depths came an unuttered thanks- 
giving to the Great Being who had 
preserved our lives to behold this 
glorious sight. 

Our vessel steamed up along side 
the New York and made fast. A 
gang plank was laid to connect the 
two vessels, and at 4 o'clock, Decem- 
ber 10th, 1864, I stepped under the 
protection of our flag and bade a long 
and glad farewell to Dixie. 

After we had been delivered on 
board the New York we were regis- 
tered by name, company and regi- 
ment, and then a new uniform was 
given us and then — can it be possible, 
a whole plate full of pork and hard- 
tack, and a quart cup of coffee. And 
all this luxury for one man! Surely 
our stomach will be surprised at such 
princely treatment. After receiving 
our supper and clothing we were sent 
on board another vessel, a receiving 
ship, which was lashed to the New 
York. Here we sat down on our 
bundle of clothes and ate our supper. 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IX DIXIE. 



77 



If I was to undertake to tell how 
good that greasy boiled pork and that 
dry hard-tack and that muddy black 
coffee tasted, I am afraid my readers 
would laugh, but try it yourself and 
see where the laugh comes in. After 
supper we exchanged our dirty, lousy 
rags for the new, clean, soft uniform 
donated to us by Uncle Sam. 

This was Saturday night. Monday 
morning we are on the good ship 
United States as she turns her prow 
out of Charleston harbor. We pass 
out over the bars and we are upon 
the broad Atlantic. Wednesday 
morning about 4 o'clock we heave to 
under the guns of the Kip Raps, at 
the entrance of Chespeake Bay, and 
reported to the commandant. The 
vessel is pronounced all right, and 



away we go up the bay. We reach 
Annapolis at 10 p.m. and are marched 
to Cottage Grove Barracks. Here we 
get a good bath, well rubbed in by a 
muscular fellow, detailed for the pur- 
pose. I began to think he would take 
the grim and dirt off from me if he 
liad to take the cuticle with it. We 
exchanged clothing here and were 
then marched to Camp Parole, four 
miles from Annapolis. Here we 
were paid one month's pay together 
with the commutation money for 
clothing and rations which we had 
not drawn during the period of our 
imprisonment. On the 24th I received 
a furlough and started for the home 
of my brother in western New York, 
where I arrived on the 26th, and here 
ends my story. 



CONCLUSION. 



Of all the men who had charge of 
of prisoners and who are responsible 
for their barbarous treatment, only 
one was ever brought to punishment. 
"Majah" Ross was burned in a hotel 
at Lynchburg, Va., in the spring of 
1866. General Winder dropped dead 
while entering his tent at Florence, 
S. C, on the 1st of January, 1865. 

"Majah" Dick Turner, Lieutenant 
Colonel Iverson and Lieutenant Bar- 
ret have passed into obscurity, while 
Wirz was hanged for his crimes. That 
Wirz richly deserved his fate, no man 
who knows the full extent of his 
barbarities, has any doubt, and yet it 
seems hard that the vengeance of our 
Government should have been visited 
upon him alone. The quality of his 
guilt was not much different from 
that of many of prison commandants 
but the fact that he had a greater 
number of men under his charge 



brought him more into notice. Why 
should Wirz, the tool, be punished 
more severely than Jeff Davis and 
Howell Cobb? They were responsi- 
ble, and yet Wirz hung while they 
went scot free. 

I have frequently noticed that if a 
man wanted to escape punishment for 
murder he must needs be a whole- 
sale murderer, your retail felloM's fare 
hard when they get into the clutches 
of the law. If a man steals a sack 
of flour to keep his family from star- 
vation, he goes to jail; but if he robs 
a bank of thousands of dollars in 
money and spends it in riotous living, 
or in an aggressive war against what 
is known as the "Tiger," whether 
that Tiger reclines upon the green 
cloth, or roams at will among the 
members of Boards of Trade or Stock 
Exchange.or is denominated a "Bull" 
or a "Bear" in the wheat ring, why 



78 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



he simply goes to Canada. 

Surely Justice is appropriately rep- 
resented as being blindfolded, and I 
would suggest that she be represent- 
ed as carrying an ear trumpet, for if 
she is not both blind and deaf she 
must be extremely partial. 

Keader, if I have succeeded in 
amusing or instructing you, I have 
partly accomplished my purpose in 
writing this story. Partly I say, for 
I have still another object in view. 

The description I have given of the 
prisons in which I was confined is 
but a poor picture of the actual con- 
dition of things. It is impossible for 
the most talented writer to give an 
adequate description. But I have 
told the truth as best I could. I defy 
any man to disprove one material 
statement, and I fall back upon the 
testimony of the rebels themselves, 
to prove that 1 have not exaggerated. 
These men suffered in those prisons 
through no fault of their own. The 
fortunes of war threw them into the 
hands of their enemies, and they 
were treated as no civilized nation 
ever treated prisoners before. They 
were left by their Government to 
suffer because that Government 
believed they would best subserve its 
interests by remaining there, rather 
than to agree to such terms as the 
enemy insisted upon. 

General Grant said that one of us 
was keeping two fat rebels out of the 
field. Now if this is true why are 
not the ex-prisoners recognized by 
proper legislation? All other classes 
of men who went to the war and 
many men and women who did not 
go, are recognized and I believe that 
justice demands the recognition of 
the ex-prisoners. I make no special 
plea in my own behalf. I suffered 
no more than any other of the thous- 
ands who were with me, and not as 
much as some, but I make the plea 
in behalf of my comrades who I know 
suffered untold miseries for the cause 
of the Union, and yet who amidst 
all this suffering and privation, 
spurned with contempt the offers 
made by the enemy of food, clothing 
and life itself almost, at the cost of 



loyalty. Their motto then was, 
"Death but not dishonor." But 
their motto now is, "Fiat iusticia,ruat 
coelum." Let justice be done though 
the heavens fall. 

Since writing a description of the 
prison life in Andersonville, I came 
across the following account of a late 
visit to the old pen, by a member of 
the 2d Ohio, of my i3rigade. It is 
copied from the National Tribune, 
and I take the liberty to use it to 
show the readers of these articles 
how much the place has changed in 
twenty-five years. 

The Author. 

ANDERSONVILLE, GA. 

The Celebrated Prison and Cemetery Revisited. 
Editor National Tribune: 

Having recently made a trip to 
Andersonville, Ga.. I thought a brief 
discription of the old prison and cem- 
etery might be of interest to the 
readers of your paper. I left the land 
of ice, sleet and snow March 26, 1888, 
taking Pullman car over Monon route 
via Louisville and Nashville, arriv- 
ing at Bowling Green, Ky., 100 miles 
south of Louisville, at noon on Marcli 
27. Peach trees were in bloom and 
wild flowers were to be seen along the 
route. Nearing Nashville we passed 
through the National Cemetery. The 
grounds are laid out nicely and neatly 
kept and looked quite beautiful as 
we passed swiftly by. Leaving Nash- 
ville, I called a halt, took a brief look 
over the once bloody battlefield of 
Stone River. I then passed through 
Murfreesboro and Tullahoma. At 
Cowen's Station I stopped for supper. 
This is the place where the dog leg- 
of mutton soup was dished up in 1863. 

At Chattanooga I visited Lookout 
Mountain; then went to the graves of 
my comrades, the Mitchel raiders, that 
captured the locomotive and were 
hanged at Atlanta. The graves are in 
a circle in the National Cemetery. 
For the information of their friends 
I will give the number of their 
graves as marked on headstones: 

J. J. Andrews. 12992. Citizen of 
Kentuckv. 

William Campbell. 11,180. Citizen 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



79 



of Kentucky. 

Samuel Slaven. 1117(5. Co. G, 33d 
Ohio. 

S. Eobinson. 11177. Co. G, 33d 
Ohio. 

G. D. Wilson. 11178. Co. B, 2d 
Ohio. 
Marion Ross. 11179. Co. A, 2d Ohio. 
Perry G. Shadrack. 11181. Co. K, 
2d Ohio. 
John Scott. 11182. Co. K, 21st Ohio. 
Leaving here, I passed over a con- 
tinuous battle field to Atlanta. Offi- 
cial records show that from Chatta- 
nooga to Atlanta, inclusive, more than 
85,000 men wei'e killed and wounded 
and more than 30,000 captured from 
Sept. 15, 1863, to Sept. 15, 1864. Ar- 
riving at Andersonville, I found the 
same depot agent in charge that was 
here in war times. His name is M. 
P. Suber; he is 76 years old, and has 
been agent here 31 years. Geo. Dish- 
er, wlio was a conductor, and handled 
the prisoners to and from the stock- 
ade, is still connected with the road. 
I arrived at 2 o'clock, and after eat- 
ing my first square meal in this place 
(although I had been a boarder here 
12 months), 1 started out to hunt up 
my old stamping-ground. The stock- 
ade is about half a mile east of depot. 
Here it was the 40,000 Northern sol- 
diers were confined like cattle in a 
pen. This prison was used from Feb- 
uary, 1864, to April 1865—14 months. 
Tlie stockade was formed of strong 
pine logs, firmly planted in the ground 
anda1)out20 feet high. The main 
stockade was surrounded by two 
other rows of logs, the middle one 16 
feet higli, the outer one 12 feet. It 
was so arranged that if the inner 
stockade was forced by the prisoners, 
the second would form another line 
of defense, inclosing 27 acres. The 
great stockade has almost entirely 
disappeared. It is only here and 
there that a post or little group of 
posts are to be seen. These have not 
all rotted away, but have been split 
into rails to fence the grounds. The 
ground is owned by G. W. Kennedy, 
a colored man. Only a small portion 
of the ground can be farmed. The 
swamp, in which a man would sink to 



his waist, still occupies considerable 
space. In crossing the little brackish 
stream I knelt down and took a drink, 
without skimming off the graybacks, 
as of old. Passing on, not far from 
the north gate I came to Providence 
Spring, that broke forth on the 12th 
or 13th of August, 1864. The spring 
is sui rounded by a neat wood curb- 
ing, with a small opening on the low- 
er side, through which the water 
constantly flows. Not the slightest 
trace is left of the dead-line. 

The holes which the prisoners dug 
with spoons and tin cups for water 
and to shelter from sun and rain are 
still to be seen, almost as perfect as 
when dug. Also the tunnels that 
were made with a view to escape are 
plain to be seen. Relics of prison 
life are still being found — bits of pots, 
kettles, spoons, canteen-covers, and 
the like. 1 had no trouble in locating 
my headquarters on the north slope. 
You can imagine my feelings as I 
walked this ground ovej again after 
24 years, thinking of the suffering and 
sorrow of those dark days. Visions of 
those living skeletons would come up 
before me with their haggard, dis- 
tressed countenances, and will fol- 
low me through life. 

A lialf mile from the prison-pen is 
the cemetery. Here are buried the 
13,714 that died a wretched death 
from starvation and disease. .The ap- 
pearance of the cemetery has been 
entirely changed since war days. 
Then it was an old field. The trench- 
es for the dead were dug about seven 
feet wide and 100 yards long. No 
coffins were used. The twisted, 
emaciated forms of the dead prisoners 
were laid side by side, at the head of 
each was driven a little stake on 
which was marked a number corres- 
ponding with the number of the body 
on the death register. The register 
was kept by one of the prisoners, and 
12,793 mames are registered, with 
State, regiment, company, rank, date 
of death and number of grave. Only 
921 graves lack identification. I found 
35 of my regiment numbered, and 
quite a number whom I knew had 
died there lie with the unknown. 



80 



FIFTEEN MONTHS IN DIXIE. 



The head boards have been taken 
away, and substantial white marble 
slabs have been erected in their 
places. The stones are of two kinds. 
For the identified soldiers the stones 
are flat, polished slabs, three feet long, 
(one-half being under ground), four 
inches thick and 12 inches wide. On 
the stone is a raised shield, and on 
this is recorded the name, rank; state 
and number. For the unknown the 
stone is four inches square and pro- 
jects only five inches above the 
ground. The rows of graves are about 
10 or 12 feet apart. There are a few 
stones that have been furnished by 
the family or friends of the dead. 
Aside from the few, so many stones 
alike are symbolic of a similar cause 
and an equal fate. The cemetery 
covers 25 acres, inclosed by a brick 
wall five feet high. The main en- 
trance is in the center of the west 
side. In the center of a diamond- 
shaped plot rises a flagstaff, where 
the Stars and Stripes are floating from 
sunrise to sunset. The cemetery 



presents a beautiful appearance. 
The grounds are nicely laid out and 
neatly kept, under the supervision of 
J. M. Bryant, who lives in a nice 
brick cottage inside the grounds. 

I will close by quoting one inscrip- 
tion from a stone erected by a sister 
to the memory of a brother. 

"They shall hunger no more, neither 
thrist any more; neither shall the sun 
light on them, nor any heat. 

"For the Lamb which is in the 
midst of the throne shall feed them, 
and shall lead them unto living foun- 
tains of water; and God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes." 

—Rev., VII: 16, 17. 

The writer of the above article was 
a prisoner of war over 19 months, 
was captured at the battle of Chicka- 
mauga Sept. 20, 1803; delivered to the 
Union lines April, 1865, and was 
aboard the ill-fated steamer Sultana. 

Would like to know if any comrade 
living was imprisoned this long. — A. 
C. Bkown, Co. I, 2d Ohio, Albert Lea, 
Minn. 







mm' i 



ms^^ 



& 



